LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

$WH 

©|ap ©npgrigljt l}a 

Shelf ..„,I:\ A \ 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



LECTURES 

ON THE L. P. STONE FOUNDATION 



DELIVERED AT 



PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 



SUPERNATURAL REVELATION: 



3n ©ssap 



CONCERNING THE BASIS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH, 



BY 



C. M. MEAD, Ph.D., D.D., 

LATELY PROFESSOR IN ANDOVER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 




NEW YORK: 
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH AND CO. 



\ 



\ 






Copyright, 1889, 
By C. M. Mead. 



Uii«w< 



FhE LlbRARY 

01. Congress 

WASHINGTON 



University Press : 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



f 



PREFACE. 



T T is not unfrequently said that no one is convinced by an 
■*- apologetic treatise, that infidels will remain infidels in 
spite of all arguments, and that therefore such works as the 
one now given to the public are useless. Christian living and 
experience, it is said, not argumentation, is what must be 
depended on as a means of convincing men of the truth and 
value of Christianity. 

But it is obvious to reply that Christian apologetics, in its 
general scope, includes the statement of what is involved in 
Christian experience. If one cannot give a reason concerning 
the hope that is in him, it is not unnatural for the doubter to 
conclude that there is no good reason for the hope. Even 
though the doubter may not be converted by the Christian's 
reasons, he should at least not be confirmed by the Christian's 
silence. 

It should be considered, however, that there are large num- 
bers of persons who, in their attitude towards Christianity, 
cannot be reckoned as decidedly on the one side or on the 
other. Whether through ignorance or through conflict of in- 
clinations, they are in a state of mind which craves a clear, 
simple, and candid exposition of the truth as it appears to those 
who are more positive in their convictions. No one mode of 
presenting Christian truth is fitted to meet all the manifold 
phases of skepticism. New statements, adapted to the new 



VI PREFACE. 

and ever-changing forms of the old doubts and questionings, 
must always be called for ; and every such statement does its 
part in the contest between truth and error. 

In the following treatise I have endeavored to discuss, in a 
plain and intelligible manner, some of the leading questions 
towards which religious thought is at present most apt to turn, 
aiming not merely to parry the attacks of outright enemies of 
Christianity, but also here and there to rectify what seem to 
me to be infelicitous or erroneous statements on the part of 
professed Christians. In so doing I am far from presuming to 
be infallible, and desire the arguments and expositions to rest 
on their merit, as tested by the ultimate judgment of enlight- 
ened Christians. 

In referring to the opinions of others, whether by way of 
approbation or of criticism, I have sought to be fair and appre- 
ciative, and to aim at such a treatment of views divergent from 
my own as to promote an eventual accord rather than to 
intensify the disagreement. It is not necessary to justify the 
choice I have made of books to be noticed or commented on. 
I will only say, respecting one work which is frequently 
referred to (my friend Professor Ladd's Doctrine of Sacred 
Scripture), that, although I have felt constrained in some in- 
stances to dissent more or less positively from his conclusions, 
I desire for that very reason to express my warm admiration, 
not only of the scholarly thoroughness, ability, and candor, 
but also of the reverent and Christian spirit, which characterize 
the work. Our points of agreement are far more numerous and 
important than those of difference. 

The quotations from the Bible are generally worded accord- 
ing to the Eevised Version. 

These lectures were delivered at Princeton in February and 
March, 1889. For the sake of accuracy it should be stated 



PREFACE. Vli 

that on account of the prescribed limitations of time, hardly a 
half of the contents of this volume could be given in the six 
lectures of the L. P. Stone course. 

As one contribution to the many testimonies in favor of 
Christian truth, it is hoped that this volume may not prove to 
be unserviceable. 

C. M. MEAD. 

September, 1889. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

ORIGIN OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 

Page 
Character of existing skepticism. Tendency to anti-supernaturalism and 
atheism. The theistic problem. I. Origin of theistic belief in the indi- 
vidual. The belief comes from tradition. II. Knowledge in general 
a social matter, as regards (1) historical and scientific truths; (2) the 
objects of direct perception; (3) the training of the faculties; (4) the 
advance in scientific acquisitions ; (5) the appi'ehension of intuitive 
truths; (6) the adoption of theistic notions. III. Yet individual cog- 
nition must precede the transmission of knowledge. 1. Testimony of 
other men cannot be accepted till first the existence of other men is 
assumed. 2. The material world must be cognized by the individual 
before there can be a general knowledge of its existence. 3. All that is 
truly known must be assumed to have been originally an object of direct 
perception. 4. Intuitive truths cannot be accepted merely on testimony. 
5. Theism, if valid, must depend on something more than testimony. 
IV. Sure knowledge results from a combination of individual cogni- 
tions. Individual cognition is the prior thing, but does not become free 
from the suspicion of illusion till confirmed by others 1-19 



CHAPTER II. 

GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 

What is the ultimate ground of theism ? It has a double foundation. 
I. Theism springs from native impulses of the mind. What leads to 
the persistent defense of theism presumably operative in producing it. 
Hence, 1. The hypotheses which derive theism from dreams, fear, etc., 
groundless. They overlook the fact requiring explanation, namely, the 
persistent tendency to believe in a God. So the Ritschl theory that 
theism sprung from a sense of weakness and want. 2. Theism not a 
direct intuition. 3. The presumption is in favor of theism as over 
against atheism. 4. The argument for theism as seen in the light of 
the legitimate consequences of adopting atheism. On the atheistic hy- 
pothesis the universe is aimless and meaningless. Free will and moral 
character impossible. Truth and error equally authoritative. So Her- 
bert Spencer's doctrine. Knowledge being held to be only relative, all 
so-called knowledge becomes merely a series of impressions. The fact of 



CONTENTS. 

Page 

error and ignorance suggests the existence of an Intelligence which is 
without error or ignorance. The origin of intelligence. Relation of 
morality to atheistic conceptions. Atheism cannot explain the moral 
sense either as regards its origin, its present working, or its ultimate 
end. Logical issue of atheism is utter indifference to the general welfare. 
Futility of the notion of moral order on atheistic basis. All life a farce 
unless there is a God. And the farce must be infinitely repeated. The 
general result is that the mind of man demands that the universe shall 
have an end, and a good end. The teleological and the moral arguments 
not the source of a belief in God, but rest on the belief. The belief 
springs from a tendency to assume a personal moral Power who directs 
the affairs of the universe. Agnostic objections futile. II. Revelation 
as confirmatory of theistic impulses. Revelation useless without a the- 
istic tendency. Belief in a God involves a desire for a revelation. Reve- 
lation, when it is received, a surer ground of knowledge than the theistic 
arguments. Example of the ordinary Christian. Theism cannot thrive 
without faith in a revelation. The objection from the multiplicity of 
alleged revelations 20-64 



CHAPTEE III. 

THE QUESTION OF A PRIMEVAL REVELATION. 

The question not how the first theistic notion arose. Dr. A. M. Fairbairn's 
argument against the hypothesis of a primeval revelation. Relation of 
language to revelation. Essential uniqueness of the condition of pri- 
meval man. Evolutionism does not remove the uniqueness. The problem 
as it presents itself to the theist. How is the aboriginal conscience to be 
conceived ? Present analogies favor the theory of a supernatural revela- 
tion. Dr. Fairbairn's notion of an "atheism of consciousness." Does 
God desire to be known ? Alleged impossibility of a primeval revelation. 
Pfleiderer's argument. View of Theodore Parker and F. W. Newman. 
Misconceptions of what a revelation is expected to do. Pfleiderer again. 
Alleged gradualness development of theistic ideas 65-86 

CHAPTER TV. 

THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION. GENERAL FEATURES. 

MIRACLES DEFINED. 

The argument for Christianity may relate to contents or to form. Three 
points in the latter case : I. Revelation limited to a particular time. 
J. S. Mill's objection. Reply. Notion of an absolute religion. Revela- 
tion no more universal and individual than the communication of knowl- 
edge in general. Relation of sin to revelation. II. Necessity of putting 
peculiar confidence in individuals, especially in Jesus Christ. Objection 
to this. Reply. Men naturally crave leaders. III. Revelation involves 
the assumption of a supernatural agency. Miracles defined. 1. Over- 
statements. Miracles not violations or transgressions of natural laws. 
Hume's doctrine considered. " Supernatural Religion." Professed the- 



CONTEXTS. XI 

Page 
ists' objections to miracles. C. H. "Weisse's. Eothe's reply. Ancient and 
present conception of natural forces. 2. Under-statements. Miracles 
explained as accelerations of natural processes ; or as analogous to mes- 
meric effects; or as wrought with the co-operation of natural forces (Pro- 
fessor Ladd ) ; or as the result of occult natural causes. 3. The distinc- 
tion between absolute and relative miracles. Different forms of it. The 
distinction untenable. Special providences. Answers to prayer . 87-123 



CHAPTER Y. 

THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 

Miracles commonly regarded as attestations of the organs of revelation. Re- 
actionary view. Tendency to question the use of miracles. I. Is faith 
in miracles a matter of indifference ? Various shades of view here in- 
cluded. The objection to the common view stated. Reply : 1. The 
agnostic view conflicts with faitli in Christianity as a special revelation. 
Pfieiderer's conception of Jesus' inspiration considered. Abuse of the 
term "revelation." 2. The skeptical view leads to confusion and self- 
contradiction as regards the uniqueness and authority of Jesus Christ. 
No explanation of the uniqueness on naturalistic grounds. Jesus' claim 
of authority not explained by his unique excellence. Ritschl's view. 
Herrmann's view considered. The Ritschl doctrine of miracles. 3. 
Skeptical Christians, in attempting to ignore the miraculous, virtually 
admit the greater miracles while they deny the lesser. Tn admitting the 
fact of a special revelation, or of the sinlessness of Christ, they admit 
the miraculous in the spiritual world. 4. The agnostic attitude towards 
miracles leads to caprice in the treatment of the New Testament records. 
Matthew Arnold's attempt to show that Jesus claimed no miraculous 
power. Denial of the supernatural leads to unfounded conjectures con- 
cerning the miraculous stories. Mr. Arnold's theory of the origin of the 
stories of miracles. What the Jews expected in the Messiah. Mr. Arnold 
on the resurrection stories. 5. Doubting the miracles leads to an un- 
tenable distinction between the present and the original Christians in 
their relation to the evidences of Christianity. How far there is a real 
difference. The difference not material. 6. The agnostic attitude 
towards miracles leads to the assumption that Christianity rests on a 
fraud. General admission that the original founding of the Church de- 
pended on a belief in Christ's resurrection 124-172 



CHAPTER VI. 

the evidential value of miracles (Continued). 

II. Does faith in Christianity depend on antecedent faith in the alleged 
miracles of Christ ? Difficulty of overcoming the presumption against 
miracles. Something needed besides the miracles themselves. Dr. "\Y. M. 
Taylor's contention against Trench. His argument presupposes that the 
fact of miracles is proved before any faith in the miracle-worker exists. 
Miracles, as distinct from feats of jugglery, cannot be proved without 



Xli CONTENTS. 

Page 
confidence in the professed miracle-worker. Trench on Deut. xiii. 1-5. 
Dr. Taylor's reply. HI. The evidential value of miracles cannot be de- 
tached from the personal character and teachings of the miracle- worker. 
But the miracles are nevertheless evidential. Examination of the view 
that the miracles of Christ were mere effluxes of his nature, and not as 
such evidential. On this view miracles are not needed as manifestations 
of Christ's character, and become not only not evidential, but embar- 
rassing. Miracles of the apostles. Why are Christ's miracles credited ? 
Their use in proving Christ's uniqueness and sinlessness. The disciples' 
confidence in Jesus' faultlessness and divinity not fixed till after the 
resurrection. According to the New Testament the miracles did serve 
an evidential purpose. Professor Bruce's contention against Mozley. 
Conclusion : Miracles have an indispensable evidential worth, but not 
independent of the evidence derived from the personal character and doc- 
trine of the miracle-worker. Advantages of this view. Relation of this 
view to the importance of the experimental evidence. Christian morality: 
its distinctive features. The power of Christianity depends on the as- 
sumption of its supernaturalness 173-195 



CHAPTER VII. 

PEOOF OF THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 

Proof of Christ's resurrection. 1. The apostles believed that Christ rose 
from the dead on the third day after the crucifixion. 2. The Christian 
Church spread rapidly immediately after the crucifixion. 3. These phe- 
nomena satisfactorily explained only by the assumption that the resurrec- 
tion was a fact. Opposing theories : ( 1 ) That Jesus did not die, but only 
swooned, on the cross. (2) That the story of the resurrection was a fic- 
tion. (3) That the disciples mistakenly thought the resurrection to be 
real. The latter the most plausible, but purely conjectural. Attempt 
to establish it by Paul's testimony. Reply : Paul affirms the fact of a 
bodily appearance of the crucified. The allegation that Paul's sight of 
Christ was a vision. What is a vision ? A vision may have an objective 
cause. View of Schenkel, Keim, etc., considered. Paul's testimony as 
confirmed by that of the Gospels. The alleged discrepancies. Apostolic 
testimony besides Paul's. II. Proof of the miracles wrought by Christ. 
The miraculous penetrates all the Gospel history, and cannot be removed. 
Christ's extraordinary claims. Specimen of the efforts to explain away 
the miracles. The miracles of healing. Why they are more readily be- 
lieved than others. Untenableness of the notion that Christ healed by 
a sort of magnetic power naturally growing out of his superior spiritu- 
ality. III. May the New Testament miracles be critically examined ? 
The character of the alleged miracle as a criterion of its reality. Par- 
ticular miracles that are offensive to some. Need of caution in applying 
any criterion. IV. General conclusion. The supernatural an integral 
part and proof of the Christian religion. Distinction between Jew and 
Gentile with regard to the evidence of Jesus' Messiahship .... 196-228 



CONTEXTS. xiii 

CHAPTER YIIL 

THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 

Page 

Was Christianity the fulfilment of all religious prophecies and hopes, or only 
of the Jewish ? Burnouf s theory of the Aryan origin of Christianity. 
Jesus himself was a Jew, and asserted his religion to be the completion of 
the Mosaic revelation. Paul affirms the same. The conclusion unavoid- 
able. Connected questions : 1. How far was Christ prophesied of by 
Moses and the prophets ? Distinction between direct and indirect prophe- 
cies. Marsh and Stuart on the typical theory. Their view criticised. 
2. How far does Old Testament prophecy authenticate the divinity of the 
Mosaic and Christian revelations ? The argument as compared with that 
from miracles. Apparent weakness of the argument. Reasons why 
minute exactness in prophecy should not be expected, (a) The main 
work of the prophet was preaching, not prediction. Criterion for the in- 
terpretation of predictions, (b) Minute particularity in prediction would 
cause doubts of the genuineness of the prophecy. (c) Minuteness of 
prediction would interfere with the free and natural course of things. 
(d) Prophetic language needed to be intelligible to the immediate hearers. 
It was colored by the circumstances of the prophet's time. The strength 
of the argument from prophecy is in the combination of them, and their 
convergence towards Christ. 3. How far does the New Testament au- 
thenticate the miracles recorded in the Old ? No radical distinction 
between the miracles of the two Testaments. But the possibility of the 
admission of apocryphal stories may be admitted. In general the refer- 
ences to Old Testament miracles in the New implies that Christ and the 
others who refer to them regarded them as genuine. 4. How far does 
the New Testament authenticate the Old Testament history ? In general 
Christ and the apostles treat this history as genuine. The narratives in 
Gen. i.-iii. considered. Efforts to treat them as poetic or allegoric. 
Authentication of authorship. Jewish traditions in the New Testa- 
ment 229-278 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE RECORD OF REVELATION. — INSPIRATION. 

The distinction between revelation and the record of it. 1. Revelation prior 
and superior to the record. 2. Revelation more important than the in- 
spiration of the Biblical writers. 3. The fact of revelation not proved by 
prior assumption of Biblical inspiration. Yet (4) there is substantial 
ground for holding to the doctrine of the special inspiration of the Bible. 
Preliminary remarks : (a) Not the Scriptures, but the Scriptural writers, 
can be called inspired, (b) The Biblical writers were conscious and re- 
sponsible in the act of writing, (c) The product of the inspiration was 
human as well as divine, (d) The inspiration of the writers not superior 
to that of the recipients of the revelation. (<e) The recipients of the reve- 
lation not more inspired when writing than when speaking. "Was the 
inspiration specifically different from that of believers in general ? Ob- 



XIV CONTEXTS. 

Page 

jections against the doctrine of such difference answered. Arguments 
for the doctrine, i. Antecedent probability that the authors of books 
which were to serve so important a purpose would be specially aided, 
ii. The general opinion of Christendom that the Scriptures were pecu- 
liarly inspired, iii. Testimony of the Bible itself. Christ's authority 
ultimate. The force of 2 Tim. iii. 16. Other representations kindred 
to this. Rothe's attempt to distinguish between Christ's testimony and 
that of the apostles. Some objections considered 279-317 



CHAPTER X. 

THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 

The search after Christian assurance. Biblical testimony as a ground of cer- 
titude. The two methods of arguing Biblical infallibility, the subjective 
and the objective. General considerations : 1. Christianity not the off- 
spring either of man's natural consciousness or of the Bible. 2. Neither 
human opinion nor the Bible has authority over the Christian Church. 
3. A normal Christian experience cannot conflict with a correct under- 
standing of the Bible. 4. As between the Bible and Christian opinion, 
the Bible is the regulative authority. 5. The Christian's religious in- 
sight has an important function, — that of interpreting the Scriptures; 
(a) distinguishing between the more and the less important ; (b) harmo- 
nizing the different parts of the Bible. 6. The general assumption of 
the infallibility of the Bible does not solve all questions of controversy. 
7. No theory of Biblical infallibility can be maintained which is contra- 
dicted by the Scriptures themselves. 8. The Bible is perfect in the sense 
that it is perfectly adapted to accomplish its end when used by one who 
is in sympathy with that end 318-354 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE COXDITTOXS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 

Biblical criticism is needful and useful. But it has its limitations. 1. Free- 
dom from prepossessions as a qualification for critical research is neither 
attainable nor desirable. 2. One's critical judgment of the Scriptures 
must be modified by one's antecedent judgment respecting Christ and 
Christianity. 3. Neither critical research nor Christian insight will ever 
effect a reconstruction of the Biblical Canon. 4. Biblical criticism can 
never persuade the Christian Church that pious fraud has played an 
important part in determining the substance or form of the Scriptural 
Canon. The Tubingen theory. The Kuenen-Wellhausen theory. Eea- 
sons why such views cannot be accepted 355-385 



CONTENTS. , XV 



APPENDIX. 

Page 

Excursus I. Dr. Maudsley on the Validity of Consciousness . . . 389-396 

Excursus II. The Cosmic Philosophy 397-411 

Excursus III. Personality and the Absolute 412-422 

Excursus IV. Leland and Watson on the Primeval Revelation . . 423-425 

Excursus V. The Certainties of the Agnostic 426-428 

Excursus VI. Beyschlag on the Miracle of the Loaves 429-433 

Excursus VII. Eitschl on Miracles 434-435 

Excursus VIII. The Book of Jonah 436-451 



Topical Index 453 

Index of Authors referred to 461 

Biblical Index 465 



SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 



CHAPTER I. 

ORIGIN OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 

'T'^HE skepticism of the present day, though in general less 
-*- coarse and violent than that of the last century, is not 
less radical and dogmatic. It exhibits, as at all times, various 
phases, now diverging only a little from the current Christian 
view, now departing still farther and abandoning what is com- 
monly held to be vital, and now going over into complete 
negation or agnosticism. But in general it may be said that 
the tendency of doubt at the present time is not so much to 
make attacks on the details of the doctrines of revealed religion 
as it is to attack the general notion of revelation itself. Anti- 
supernaturalism, stimulated and strengthened by the discussions 
and speculations connected with Darwinianism, is a potent ele- 
ment in the thinking of large circles of men. There is indeed 
no lack of assault upon the details of the Christian belief ; but 
the underlying tone — that which gives color and force to the 
assaults — is a disbelief or doubt concerning the reality or pos- 
sibility of a supernatural revelation. The critical questions 
concerning the age, authorship, and composition of the biblical 
books are of immense importance ; but they themselves take 
their shape largely from antecedent assumptions respecting the 
fact and character of a divine revelation. 1 

1 This is illustrated by the anonymous work, Supernatural Religion, which 
begins by professing to prove the impossibility of a supernatural revelation, 
and then elaborately argues against the genuineness and credibility of the New 
Testament records of such a revelation. If the first general proposition is 
established, the second follows as a matter of course, and hardly needs so much 

1 



2 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

The problem is not quite the same as it was in the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries, when the principal attack on 
the doctrine of revelation came from English deism. It is now 
outright atheism, or pantheism, or semi-pantheism, which wages 
the battle against the current Christian conception of revealed 
religion. Christianity can indeed regard these ever-varying 
attacks with composure. Its complete overthrow has been so 
often heralded, and the issue has so uniformly failed to come up 
to the loud-sounding phrase of the manifesto, that no one need 
be alarmed. Yet the renewed attack must be met with renewed 
defense, else the stronghold will be regarded, at least by the 
doubtful and the indifferent, as surrendered. 

The essentially atheistic cast of modern skepticism creates a 
special need of reconsidering and restating the reasons for the 
belief in the existence of a personal God. This belief is pre- 
supposed in every assumption of the fact of a supernatural reve- 
lation, and is therefore the first to be asserted and fortified. 

The question, Why do men believe in a God ? may be resolved 
into two distinct questions : How do men generally first come to 
have the notion that there is a God ? and, Why do they persist 
in cherishing the notion ? This distinction is often overlooked, 
though it is a very obvious one. The origin of a belief is quite 
distinct from the ultimate reason, or reasonableness, of it. If 
we consider the first of these questions, we are at once led to 
the observation that, — 

I. Men in general get the notion of a God from tradition. 
The belief is a communicated belief. 1 When parents have any 

discussion. If we are sure that a miracle cannot take place, or cannot be 
proved, it is useless to examine minutely the alleged evidences of its occur- 
rence ; but if we do examine them, the result of the examination is of course 
a foregone conclusion. 

1 " The belief that there is one God, infinite in power, wisdom, and good- 
ness, has certainly not been wrought out by each one of us for himself, but has 
been passed on from man to man, from parent to child." — R. Flint, Theism, 
5th ed., p. 23. "To the child's mind the parent's word ought to be, as it is, 
evidence far stronger than the conclusions of his unpractised reason." — E. R. 
Conder, Basis of Faith, 2d ed., p. 102. Cf. J. L. Diman, The Theistic Argu- 
ment, p. 74. 



ORIGIN OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 3 

religious belief, they do not wait for the children to develop 
their own religion. The theistic notions held by the adults are 
communicated to the children as soon as they are able to grasp 
them. No man can probably recall having a distinct concep- 
tion of God, antedating all instruction on the subject. Even if, 
in case of neglected religious education, the child should raise 
queries looking towards theism, yet he does not reach an assured 
confidence in the fact of a God, except as his vague conjectures 
are confirmed by others. In point of fact it is not found that in 
communities where practical or theoretical atheism prevails, the 
children attain to any essentially higher belief than their elders. 
Whether the current belief is monotheism, polytheism, fetich- 
ism, or atheism, the rule is, that what the adults are, such also 
the children become. 

As a matter of historic fact this statement can hardly be 
questioned for a moment. However true it may be that men 
are naturally inclined to theism, — that they have innate ten- 
dencies to believe in a God, — the question, how each individual 
first received the definite notion, and the assured conviction, of 
the existence of a divine being, is not answered by any demon- 
stration of such tendencies. The more true it is that men are 
naturally theistic in their tendencies, the more pains will they 
take to inculcate theistic doctrines in young children ; they will 
try to preoccupy their minds with the notion of a God as soon as 
they become capable of taking the notion in. In most cases 
this traditional belief is in fact the only belief that men have ; 
the origin of their belief and the ground of it are identical. 
They believe because, and only because, they have been told. 
They never undertake either to question or to substantiate the 
belief in which they have been trained. 1 

1 Professor Calderwood (Philosophy of the Infinite, p. 47) says : "The great 
majority of men are believing in God without any reference to the arguments 
which have been used to establish his existence. This is one of the very ob- 
vious facts which harmonize only with the admission of the necessity of the 
conviction." The conclusion is hardly to be inferred so necessarily from the 
premise as is here implied. It is a common belief among young German chil- 
dren that new-born babes are brought by storks ; but it would be hasty to 
infer that there is any necessity in this conviction. They think so because 
they have been told so. 



4 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

Now, this is no exceptional relation of things. Eeligious be- 
lief is not peculiar in being a matter of tradition. For — 

II. Human knowledge in general is transmitted knowledge. 

The faculty to understand must of course be presupposed. 
But the actual cognitions, the knowledges., which men obtain, 
are, as a whole, dependent on the testimony of others. 

1. As regards the larger part of men's knowledge, the propo- 
sition will command ready assent. The most of what every one 
knows respecting history, natural science, and indeed respecting 
the world in general, he obtains from books or oral instruction, 
and not from direct perception. What we thus learn we take on 
trust. We assume that others have learned the facts, and that 
we are warranted in believing them. 

2. But, more than this, even what is commonly regarded as 
an object of direct perception becomes in the full sense an ob- 
ject of knoivledge only through the consentient testimony of 
men. 1 Let it be assumed that the external world is directly 
cognized through the senses. Still there arises the question, 
How does one know that he perceives correctly ? He seems to 
see the outward object directly; but how is he sure that it is 
not merely a seeming ? Deception is possible, as all admit ; for 
in some cases it is actual. Optical illusions are numerous. In 
diseased states of the nervous system a person seems to see 
what no one else can see. In dreams unrealities have all the 
seeming of realities. Is it not possible that all our apparent 
perceptions are equally illusory ? How do we decide that our 
seeming perceptions are normal? Our only means of deter- 
mining this is an appeal to the general consensus of men. If 
men found themselves in constant disagreement as to the fact 
or the characteristics of the material things around them, how 
would it be possible to arrive at any certainty whatever as re- 
gards the experience of the senses ? ISTo matter how vivid or 
how permanent might be the impressions of some; if others 
equally numerous, equally sane, failed uniformly under like 
circumstances to experience the same impressions, there would 
be not merely an insoluble conflict of opinions, but there would 

1 " Our natural beliefs do not belong to the individual, but to the race." — 
J. J. Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, p. 101. 



ORIGIN OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 5 

necessarily be doubt on both sides respecting the trustworthi- 
ness of the sensations. Illusions of the senses being possible 
and often actual, how is one to be assured that in any given 
case his sensations are not illusions ? The only possible source 
of assurance is the confirmation which his experience receives 
from the testimony of his fellow-men. "We trust our senses be- 
cause they agree with the senses of men in general. We are of 
course naturally inclined to trust our senses. But if a man 
found himself in perpetual and universal disagreement with the 
rest of the world respecting the objects of his sense-perceptions, 
what would be the result? If he were in general of sound 
mind, he w T ould himself abandon all confidence in the correct- 
ness of his experiences, and accept the testimony of others 
rather than his own apparently direct and immediate cogni- 
tions. In the case of those whose senses are abnormal or de- 
fective, this trust in the testimony of others is always exercised. 
The blind and the deaf credit the testimony of others respecting 
vision and sound, even though they cannot understand it. The 
color-blind believe that others see real distinctions of color 
which yet they themselves cannot detect. The victim of de- 
lirium tremens is glad to be assured that his visions have been 
delusions, however real they seemed when the delirium was 
raging. 

Thus, even as regards the general question of objective re- 
ality, the individual experience depends for its certainty on 
the confirmatory experience of mankind in general. But more 
than this : — 

3. The infantile faculties of perception are themselves trained 
by others. The fact is not merely that children first perceive, 
and afterwards learn that others perceive the same things, but 
also that others first teach them hovj to perceive. The child's 
first sensations are vague and confused. He needs to be taught 
to distinguish and to compare. There is no intelligent perception 
till there is discrimination. Knowledge in the higher sense de- 
pends on the power of abstraction and classification ; and this 
requires language, and language is a matter of communication. 
There is no example of a child's growing up into an intelligent 
observation of the world without his powers being trained by 



6 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

his elders. Without such education, as certain sporadic cases 
indicate, a child would hardly equal in intelligence the brute 
creation. 1 But further: — 

4. This law of dependence on one's fellow-men is not limited 
to one's incipient years. Even what seems to be knowledge 
independently acquired by an adult is not real knowledge, ex- 
cept as it is connected with other knowledge for which he has 
been more or less dependent on the education he has received 
from his fellow-men. Thus, for example, a man may discover a 
new species of flower. He may be the only one who has ever 
seen it. But why does he call the newly discovered object a 
flower? How does he know that it is a flower? Simply because 
he has been educated to classify and associate the objects of per- 
ception, and to distinguish certain groups from certain other 
groups according to characteristic features. The very word by 
which he designates his discovery is one that has no meaning 
except as the meaning has been given to it by the common con- 
sent of those with whom he has lived. What he reports about 
the new flower is made intelligible to others and to himself 
only as it involves a comparison of the new with that which 
is already a familiar and common knowledge of his fellows. 
The case is similar when what one has learned simply from 
testimony is afterwards supplemented by direct observation. 
Thus, one reads or hears about Eome. He becomes familiar 
with its history and its physical features. But his knowledge 
is wholly a communication from others. He knows nothing 
about Eome except as he trusts the veracity of those who have 
told him what the city has been and still is. Afterwards he 
goes to Eome himself. He sees the things which he has here- 
tofore only known about through testimony. But has he now 
become independent of testimony ? By no means. He gets a 

1 " In life the chief element by far is personal intercourse. This is the true 
educator of man Philosophers and preachers are alike powerless in compari- 
son to the daily teaching of personal communion between man and man, and 
still more between child and man. . . . Habits of thought and tendencies of 
affection which have grown through our earliest experience, and been inherited 
from countless ages before, assert themselves in spite of all adopted opinions." 
— R. Travers Smith, Man's Knowledge of Man and God, p. 234 



ORIGIN OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 7 

clearer and more vivid impression of the place through direct 
perception ; but as to the history and meaning of what he sees 
he is as dependent as ever. Nay, he cannot even say that he 
now knows that there is a city of Eome independently of ex- 
ternal testimony. He sees a city ; but how does he know that 
it is Eome except as he trusts the assurance of others ? He 
sees the Coliseum and St. Peter's. But what does that prove ? 
He does not know that this pile is the Coliseum, and that that 
one is St. Peter's, except as he implicitly trusts the testimony 
previously received concerning these buildings. There can be 
no recognition of the city as being Eome except as the truthful- 
ness of this testimony is assumed. 

5. Even in the perception of the truths of mathematics and 
logic there is no absolute exception to this law of dependence 
on the testimony of others. The truths are called self-evident ; 
but this does not mean that they come to each individual spon- 
taneously. Even the simplest mathematical propositions are 
first introduced into the mind by communication. When one 
is mature enough to study mathematical treatises, one comes 
to see the intrinsic truthfulness of the propositions ; the testi- 
mony of others is in a sense replaced by a direct perception of 
their necessary truth. But even now there is no absolute inde- 
pendence. When one has attained this direct assurance of the 
truths in question, he finds that other minds agree with his own. 
This agreement is a confirmation of his intuitions. Suppose he 
should find that what seems axiomatic to him is called ab- 
surd by everybody else, what would he have to conclude ? Just 
because everybody thinks as he does and has the same inward 
certainty that he has, he becomes doubly sure of his convic- 
tions. What seems to be a law of his mind he finds to be a law 
of all minds, and therefore he trusts the soundness of his own 
mind. 

6. Still less is there an exception to this law of dependence on 
other minds in the matter of theistic conceptions. If our grasp 
even of the principles of mathematics and logic becomes clear 
and firm only as it is aided and ratified by other minds, still 
more must this be the case as regards our religious notions. 
For here there is no formula which so sharply defines the 



8 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

conception that the mind has at once the sense of taking it 
all in. The definition of God is not a simple thing, like the 
definition of a circle. The conceptions of God vary greatly : 
some are meagre, some are erroneous. Consequently, the sev- 
eral conceptions being mutually inconsistent, theism cannot 
claim the place of an axiomatic truth which compels assent 
as soon as stated. Moreover, in mathematics and logic that 
which is called intuitive or self-evident is not an affirmation 
concerning the existence or qualities of an objective thing, but 
concerning certain relations of things, whether existent or imagi- 
nary. And the self-evidence extends only so far as to involve 
a rejection of that which is self-contradictory or absurd. Thus, 
when it is said that the sum of two and two cannot be five, 
that is virtually only saying that a thing cannot be greater 
than itself ; that is, that it cannot be itself and not itself at once. 
When it is said that two straight lines cannot enclose a space, 
the statement is self-evident only in so far as this proposition is 
involved in the definition of straight lines. If two lines were 
found to enclose a space, we should simply say that they are 
for that reason not straight. But an alleged intuition of God 
as a positively existent being, possessed of superhuman attri- 
butes, has little analogy with all this. If the alleged intuition 
is a fact, it is more nearly analogous to the direct perception 
which we have of the material world. But if it is a fact, it 
must be a universal fact, at least in all normal minds ; and if 
so, it is inexplicable that it should ever have been questioned. 
Even if we could accept the assertion of those 1 who declare 
that men become aware of God as soon as consciousness begins, 
we could not believe that each individual adult traces his actual 
belief in God to any such infantile intuition. If only a single 
person had such an immediate consciousness springing up in 
him before he even has the use of language to express it, and if, 
when he has acquired the power of communicating with others, 
he should find that he were the only one who had the notion of 
a God, what would be the fate of that poor infantile conception, 
negatived at once by the parents and friends, to trust whose 

1 Eor example, E. Mulford, Republic of God, p. 1; Professor Calder- 
wood, Philosophy of the Infinite, p. 42. 



ORIGIN OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 9 

word is as strong an instinct as any other within him ? No ; 
we know too little about the experiences of the new-born in- 
fant's mind to be able to affirm that, before it can speak, it yet 
knows about God ; but we certainly do know that, before the 
child becomes able to communicate his knowledge, he receives 
the knowledge communicated from others. And we know that 
if he did not receive it, if he grew up and found his infantile 
intuitions repudiated by all his elders, he would probably soon 
conclude that what he thought before he knew enough to talk 
was not of much account over against the accumulated wisdom 
of those whom he instinctively trusts as knowing and telling the 
truth. 

Theism is often treated as if all men were monotheists, and 
as if they all immediately after birth began to make use of the 
Anselmic or the Cartesian argument, or were struck with the 
wonderful teleology of the world into which they have been 
introduced, or began to infer, from the existence of a moral 
sense within them, the existence of a universal Moral Governor 
outside of them. Or at least they are supposed to have a pro- 
found feeling of dependence. But manifestly there can never 
be any evidence of all this. What the speechless child is think- 
ing or feeling in the theological line no one can know, unless the 
child, after he has learned to talk, is able to make a report con- 
cerning his infantile theologizings. But these reports have 
never yet been made. On the contrary, what we do know 
about the matter is that from the very beginning of life the 
child's mind undergoes an educational process at the hands of 
others, and that from these others his religious conceptions 
are derived. 

But if it should now be inferred that theism is accounted for 
simply by saying that it is a traditional belief, we should be 
guilty of a very hasty and shallow conclusion. Testimony is a 
chain, each link of which is connected with another ; but what 
does the whole chain depend on ? The beginning of a perception 
or belief cannot come from testimony. The first theist cannot 
have got his theism from his ancestors ; nor does ancestral tes- 
timony constitute of itself any proof of the correctness of 
the doctrine handed down. We are led, therefore, to a line of 



10 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

reflection somewhat antithetic to the foregoing, the substance of 
which may be expressed in the general proposition that — 

III. Individual cognition must precede the transmission of 
knowledge. Though one's individual sensations need to be con- 
firmed by those of others, yet the world consists of individuals ; 
so that this general testimony can come to have existence only 
as the individuals each have their individual experience of sen- 
sation and perception. The primary and fundamental fact, then, 
must be the individual consciousness ; and there can be no cer- 
tainty resulting from the sum of the consciousnesses unless there 
is some sort of validity in the individual one. In particular, it 
is to be considered that — 

1. Before the testimony of other men can be taken in, there 
must be an apprehension of the fact that there are other men. I 
cannot believe another man's statement until I first believe that 
that other man exists. How do I come to know or to believe 
that there are other persons than myself ? This cannot come 
from testimony; for the acceptance of testimony presupposes 
such belief. There is, therefore, an original act of perception by 
which one person becomes aware of the existence of another. 
Manifestly, this is a fact of prime importance ; in reference to 
the general question of cognition it is fundamental. Whatever 
may be the infant's first act of consciousness, whether a percep- 
tion of the material world or not, it is certain that one of the 
first cognitions of the child is the cognition of other persons. 
Even though we concede that this cognition comes through the 
cognition of the material world, yet it is a distinct and vitally 
important thing. The whole subsequent development of the child 
depends on his being able to come to this consciousness of fellow- 
men, and therefore to receive instruction from them. And, be it 
observed, this cognition is a cognition of mind by the mind. The 
child by means of his eye and touch can directly perceive nothing 
but the form and color and motion of other men. By his ear 
he becomes aware of sounds, which somehow he comes to asso- 
ciate with these persons. But he also gets an impression of 
form, color, and sound in connection with other external objects 
which never appear to him in the character of persons. What 
is it in the movements and in the voice of other men that 



ORIGIN OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 11 

awakens these peculiar experiences of recognizing them as kin- 
dred beings ? How is it that there can come to be a mental com- 
munication between the child and the other human beings with 
whom he comes into contact ? Particularly how is it that words 
— arbitrary sounds, having no intrinsic meaning — come to have 
a definite meaning, and constitute the means by which the mind 
of the child enters into communication with his fellow-beings ? 
How can there be an interchange of thought and feeling by 
means of language ? Whatever theory of knowledge men may 
adopt, here is a fact which challenges attention and demands 
recognition. And true as it is that our perceptive experience 
is, and needs to be, confirmed by that of other men, it is equally 
true that there must be an anterior assurance of the fact that 
there are other perceptive beings than ourselves. 1 

More primitive and truly natural than speech are gestures and 
facial expressions as indices of mental states. The infant can 
cry and scowl before it comes to distinct consciousness ; and its 
cries and grimaces are expressions of its emotions. But how 
does the child know that a mother's smile has any meaning ? 
He cannot come to this knowledge through having discovered 
that his own pleasure is expressed by a smile, for he has never 
examined himself in a mirror. The recognition of a smile as 
the expression of maternal love and pleasure presupposes the 
recognition of personality in the mother. However indispen- 
sable the body may be thought to be as the medium of com- 
munication between minds, it cannot serve as such a medium 
except as the mind which animates it and uses it is recognized 
by the other mind which receives the communication. This is 
an ultimate fact. How early this recognition takes place, and 
of what sort it is at first, no one can tell. But before one can 
receive instruction from another, before one's infant impressions 
can be consciously confirmed by the representations of other 
persons, those others must be known to be persons. Unless, 
therefore, we are prepared to fall into the arms of hopeless 
Pyrrhonism, we must assume that it is the prerogative of the 
individual mind to know intuitively that there are other minds 
kindred with itself. 

1 See Excursus I. in the Appendix. 



12 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

But this cognition of other persons is not a purely spiritual 
one, independent of a material medium. The child becomes 
aware of an external personality only through the perception of 
an external "body. The perception of a material world must, 
therefore, be prior to the recognition of personal beings in it. 
Consequently, if the confirmatory testimony of our fellow-men 
can really come to us only on condition that we first know that 
there are such personal beings, it is still more obvious that — 

2. There must be a direct and immediate cognition of the ma- 
terial world, anterior to the knowledge derived from testimony. 
However important that testimony may be as a confirmation of 
individual impressions, and however true it may be that the 
total absence of such confirmation might properly lead one to 
doubt the validity of his own impressions, still there must first 
be the impressions, and they must precede the confirmation of 
them. Moreover, trust in the affirmations of others implies that 
they also have somehow obtained an immediate knowledge of 
the external world; otherwise the source of our knowledge 
would be an endless chain of testimony, — each link depending 
on a preceding one, but the whole supported by nothing. 

It is very clear, then, what reply to make to one who tells us 
how fallacious the testimony of our senses is. It is no doubt 
easy to prove that we are often deceived by them. It may even 
be shown that in some respects all men are deceived by the 
natural and untutored operation of the senses. It may be af- 
firmed that all knowledge of distance comes from the correction 
of the original impressions made on the eyes. It may be shown 
that all men are deceived in imagining that color is something 
inhering in material objects, whereas science has proved that it 
is nothing but a subjective affection caused by peculiar undula- 
tions. All manner of individual delusions may be proved to 
have existed. And so the physical senses may be convicted of 
general incapacity to tell the truth, and of being under the 
necessity of dutifully receiving instruction from the learned. 
But to all this there is one short answer. Imperfect or erro- 
neous cognition cannot be corrected unless there is somewhere 
real knowledge. If it is affirmed that all knowledge is only of 
the phenomenal or relative, — that we know only what appears 



ORIGIN OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 13 

to be, and cannot get at the " thing in itself," — the question must 
be asked, How do we come to know that knowledge is thus im- 
perfect or misleading ? If the senses of touch and of sight in 
various ways supplement and correct one another; if certain 
phenomena, at first supposed to be objectively real, are after- 
wards proved by observation or by testimony to be subjective 
impressions merely ; if physiologists and naturalists and chem- 
ists prove that the whole material world is in motion, even 
where it seems to be most profoundly at rest, — that heat and 
light, popularly supposed to be distinct entities, are nothing but 
subjective sensations caused by invisible motions of particles, — 
that, in short, things in general " are not what they seem," — 
what then ? The obvious inference is, either that these scien- 
tists themselves are trying to delude us, or else that they really 
do know some things positively and immediately. If all sup- 
posed knowledge is only phenomenal and therefore deceptive, 
then there is an end to all possibility of correcting the decep- 
tions. 1 If the scientist knows that heat is a mode of motion, it 
is because he is sure that in his investigations he has discovered 
facts, and discovered them by direct perception; in other words, 
he must be sure that he has obtained a direct and infallible cog- 
nition of the external world. Consequently, if the importance 
of testimony is insisted on, if it is urged that no one can im- 
plicitly trust his individual impressions, we may admit all that 
is proved; but in admitting it we must assume that there is 
such a thing as a direct and trustworthy knowledge of the 
material world, otherwise neither we ourselves nor any one else 
would ever be able to correct our mistakes. No number of con- 
firming witnesses can make anything sure, if the testimony of 
each one depends for its value simply on the testimony of some 
one else. The direct cognition which the individual has of the 
external world must, therefore, be the prime factor in the 
knowledge one acquires. One must trust his senses ; if he can- 
not trust them as regards the perception of the material world, 

1 Cf. Professor Bowne, Studies in Theism, chap. i. ; Prof. S. Harris, Philo- 
sophical Basis of Theism, § 5. "If agnosticism were proved true, at the same 
moment it would be proved false, for it would be proved that we know the 
truth of agnosticism." 



14 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

then he must distrust them also when through them he sees 
and hears the witnesses who profess to rectify his cognitions. 

3. Equally clear is it that what one learns solely by way of 
communication must be assumed to have been originally learned 
by some one — if true — through direct individual cognition. 
The most of our knowledge is derived from others ; and it is 
indispensable as well as instinctive that we should put con- 
fidence in what others affirm. But when we thus trust them, 
we must assume that the knowledge was originally obtained 
otherwise than by testimony. False notions may be, and have 
been, propagated from one generation to another for ages. 
These notions sometimes become corrected through more care- 
ful observation of facts. But whether true or false, our no- 
tions cannot be tested by mere testimony. All real knowledge 
must be originally direct knowledge ; and when communicated 
knowledge is afterwards confirmed by direct observation, this 
direct cognition, while it confirms, also in a sense supplants, 
the testimony which first communicated the knowledge. 

4. Again, our more abstract and spiritual conceptions are 
subject to the same law. What are called innate intuitions 
are in point of fact, as a rule, first communicated. There are 
many who from lack of instruction never come to a conscious 
recognition of the fundamental principles of mathematics or 
of logic or of ethics ; and those who have come to a clear rec- 
ognition of them have generally first come to it through a 
communication from others. The truths called axiomatic or 
innate are presented in their formulated shape to the child. 
He then reflects on them. He may be too young or too feeble- 
minded to understand the statements at first, and he may 
accept them blindly ; or he may understand the statements, and 
accept them, without seeing their intrinsic and necessary truth, 
— the apprehension of this intrinsic necessity may come to him 
afterwards. The explanations which come to him from books 
or teachers quicken and aid his apprehensions. A short study of 
a work on geometry will introduce one to an assured conviction 
of the absolute and incontrovertible truth of certain geometric 
principles, whereas without that instruction the principles 
might never have taken definite shape in the mind at all. 



ORIGIN OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 15 

"What is true of the most fundamental mathematical truths 
holds also of moral principles. Let them be ever so elementary 
and necessary, it does not follow that the infant mind unaided 
picks them up and recognizes them as infallible truths. The 
recognition of the necessity and intrinsic excellence of the 
truths must indeed come ; it must come through the exercise of 
the faculties of moral perception, which are inborn. Yet his- 
torically the general principles come as communications, in 
the first instance. And in all cases this instruction has a large 
influence in shaping the form which the principles assume in 
the juvenile mind. 

But the point now to be emphasized is that here too — and 
here more almost than anywhere else — there can be no depen- 
dence placed on mere testimony as the ultimate ground of belief. 
There may be, and is, much blind adoption even of what are 
commonly called intuitive principles. But no one who reflects 
can regard mere testimony in these matters as an ultimate 
ground of belief. The truths must be self-evidencing ; they 
must be seen to have an intrinsic validity compelling men to 
accept them. Ultimately the testimony is replaced by a direct 
perception ; and this direct perception of the truth is assumed 
to be the original ground on which it came to be recognized, 
-and to be that alone which gives the testimony itself its 
worth. 

5. In like manner, testimony concerning a Divine Being can- 
not be taken as an ultimate and adequate proof of the fact that 
there is such a Being. The faith in God may be, and is, a com- 
municated faith ; but we cannot reasonably rest our faith on 
testimony alone. There must be some more original and con- 
clusive evidence of the divine existence than is found in the 
mere prevalence of the belief. If theism is founded in fact, 
then somewhere — either now and always, or at certain special 
times — there must have been a direct knowledge, an evidence, 
concerning the Deity, which serves as the foundation of the tes- 
timony and gives it its value. Whether that knowledge comes 
from some direct intuition which every one may have, or comes 
only to a comparatively few, is a question on which men may 
differ. The point here emphasized is that the transmitted no- 



16 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

tion must, if valid, have some other basis than the mere fact of 
the transmission. There must be or must have been something 
like an immediate cognition of God somewhere, or else the 
theistic belief must take its place alongside of other fancies 
which, after being for generations handed down and believed, 
have at length been exploded, because found to be without 
evidence or contrary to evidence. 

What, then, is to be our conclusion ? What has now been 
laid down may seem to nullify the force of what was said be- 
fore about the importance or necessity of common consent as 
the conclusive evidence of the truth of things. Direct in- 
dividual perception appears, after all, to be the true source and 
ground of all knowledge. What is the correct statement of 
the relation of individual to general experience, with regard to 
the question of the validity of men's beliefs and cognitions ? 

IY. The answer to the question is this : Sure knowledge is 
the product of the combination and comparison of individual 
cognitions. A common belief is made up of individual beliefs, 
and therefore the individual belief must be the prior thing. 
But the individual impression, so long as it is merely a single 
one, is more or less vague and uncertain. The impressions of 
one individual need to be explained, corrected, or confirmed by 
those of other individuals. The general experience is nothing 
but the sum of individual experiences. There is no generic 
man whose verdict can be got at, apart from the testimony of 
the several individuals who make up the community. All that 
is known must originally have been cognized by individuals by 
some direct process. But the experience of two individuals is 
of more value than that of one ; and the experience of a thou- 
sand, if it is all in one direction, is of more value than that of 
two. The impression of one is more likely to be correct, if all 
others under the same circumstances have the same impression, 
than if they do not. For it is to be remembered that the im- 
pulse to trust the word of others is as original and innate as 
the impulse to trust the validity of one's own cognitions ; but 
the cognitions of all those others must be, for each one, an 
original cognition, if it is to have any intrinsic value as a 
confirmation of the cognition of the one. 



ORIGIN OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 17 

With regard, for example, to the reality of an outward world, 
every one seems to have a direct perception of it. But this im- 
pression may be a mistaken one. One may be deluded by a purely 
subjective affection of his own nerves. If, however, he finds that 
everybody else has a similar impression, he sees that his expe- 
rience is not to be explained as a delusion. He is confirmed 
in the conviction that what seemed to be a direct cognition 
of something external was really such. But the force of this 
confirmation comes from the assumption that in each individual 
case there was a direct and independent perception. Each one 
perceives for himself; but each one is made confident of the 
accuracy and reality of his perception by learning that others 
have the same experience. 

All knowledge is thus seen to be a composite thing. It is 
made up of two elements : (1) the direct, immediate perception 
or impression which the individual has ; and (2) the ratification 
and education of that impression by the general community of 
individuals. Until this confirmation comes, the individual cos:- 
nition remains a mere impression, a possible illusion. It 
seems to be a valid cognition ; but it may be, and often proves 
to be, a mere impression, answering to no objective fact. 

In this respect man is evidently to be sharply distinguished 
-from the brute creation. The human faculties are from the 
first subjected to an educational process, to which there is no 
analogy among the brutes. 1 Whatever may be our theory of 
instinct, nothing can be more obvious than that there is a wide 
difference between the human and the bestial being, as regards 
the manner in which they severally attain knowledge. Just 
in proportion as the human knowledge is of a higher sort than 
that of which the brute is capable, in just that proportion is the 
human being dependent for the attainment of his knowledge 

1 There is, no doubt, an educational process involved in the mere accumu- 
lation of experience. It is a familiar truth to all observers, that the first 
cognitions of the infant seem to be almost wholly experiences of bodily sensa- 
tions, accompanied by a very vague and inaccurate impression of the outward 
cause. Dr. McCosh {Intuitions of the Mind, part ii. book i. chap, i.) 
depicts this well, but does not give sufficient weight to the educating in- 
fluence of others in developing and shaping the deliverances of the cognitive 
faculties. 

2 



18 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

on his elders who have accumulated a store of it before him. 
Human knowledge is, in an emphatic sense, a common posses- 
sion. It is a possession in which no one is wholly independent 
of others. Not only the great mass of information which comes 
purely as a matter of testimony and is accepted purely on trust, 
but also the knowledge which comes from direct observation, 
depends for its full validity on the confirmatory evidence of one's 
fellow-men. Knowledge, especially knowledge of the higher 
sort, is not genuine knowledge till it can be expressed in lan- 
guage ; and language is essentially the means whereby thought 
is communicated. Language is the property of a community. 
"Whatever may be the true theory of the origin of it, and how- 
ever important or even indispensable it may be to the indi- 
vidual in his private reflections, still we know of no language 
which is not a social thing. No one invents a language of his 
own ; he receives it, ready made, from others. He never begins 
independent meditations in the use of language till he has a 
language ; and he gets a language only as a communication 
from others. Though he may afterwards use language in 
elaborating his own ideas, though he may even contribute some- 
thing to the modification or enrichment of language, still the 
mental culture which now enables him to pursue his in- 
dependent studies was originally dependent on the language of 
others. 

The social element is, therefore, a much more vital thing in 
man's nature than in the brute's. A brute can live and grow 
and attain the perfections of a brute almost entirely without 
any connection with other brutes. A human being, on the con- 
trary, left in infancy without the help and stimulus of human 
companions, would, even if able to survive, yet never manifest 
distinctively human traits. Nothing of that which is highest 
and most characteristic in man comes to him apart from in- 
struction. Eeason is, in a true sense, a collective possession of 
the race, — not distinct and independent in each individual. 
Germinally, it must exist in each one ; it cannot be a collective 
thing without being first an individual thing. But it nowhere 
becomes its true self except as it is developed under the shaping 
influence of what other minds contribute. As faintly burning 



ORIGIN OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 19 

coals lying separate only tend to die out, but when laid to- 
gether kindle one another into a glowing flame ; so the spark 
of human reason left in any one wholly without the kindling 
influence of companion minds would grow dull and feeble, while 
contact with others quickens and brightens it into a burning 
light. 

All knowledge, accordingly, is essentially the property of a 
human community. Even the first acquisition of it by the 
individual depends on the education previously received from 
others. The great mass of knowledge possessed by the world 
is purely a matter of communication ; and the assurance of the 
correctness of it comes from the confidence that is felt in the 
trustworthiness of testimony. This holds true of the concep- 
tions which men cherish concerning God, as well as of every- 
thing else. 

Nevertheless, there must be some means of verifying men's 
theistic notions ; there must be an ultimate ground for the be- 
liefs underlying the traditional communication of them, or else 
they are all superstitions blindly cherished and blindly accepted. 
We come, then, to the second general question, What is the 
ultimate foundation and justification of the common belief in a 
Supreme Being? 



20 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 



CHAPTEE II. 

GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 

r*0 explain the original ground of theism, we should need to 
■*■ go back to the first man or men who were led to embrace 
it, and learn why they embraced it. But this it is impossible 
to do ; our means of investigation are not adequate to the 
task. But though we cannot recur with certainty to the actual 
origin of theistic belief, we can do what is closely akin to it, — 
we can question the consciousness and experience of those who 
have lived and still live in historic times. We can learn not 
merely what the traditional notion is, but we can learn also 
what it is that sustains the belief after it has teen assailed. It 
may be presumed that what now serves to keep it alive and in- 
fluential, even in the face of doubts and open opposition, must 
have operated also to produce it originally. 

Now, when we inquire what it is that feeds and perpetuates 
the belief in a Divine Being, we find the answer already sug- 
gested by the foregoing. The belief rests on a double founda- 
tion. There are, in the first place, primary and direct impulses, 
tendencies, or intuitions of the individual mind leading to the 
conception and belief. There is, in the second place, the as- 
surance of the correctness of the belief which, comes from cor- 
roborative testimony. 

I. First, then, theism may be considered as a belief springing 
from the direct operation of the individual mind. In point of 
fact, what is commonly called natural theology does not de- 
scribe the process by which the theist comes to his belief; it is 
rather the defense which is made against real or imaginary 
attacks on the belief which has been inherited or communi- 
cated. Education has so far superseded the action of the spon- 
taneous impulses of the soul that it is impossible to determine 
how such impulses would work ; indeed, it is certain that they 



GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 21 

would never develop any clearly conscious belief without the 
help of others who have already a positive belief. It being im- 
possible to ascertain the genesis of the original conception of 
God, and equally impossible for any one now to come to such a 
conception independently, all that natural theology can do is to 
justify theism against assault. In this self-defense the theist, 
though he does not present the historical process of his own or 
other minds, may yet be presumed to indicate substantially 
what the instinctive tendencies are which have led to so gen- 
eral an adoption of theistic beliefs. That which persistently 
defends these beliefs must most probably be the same as that 
which created them. 

1. This test disposes at once of those hypotheses which derive 
the notion of a God from dreams, 1 or animism, 2 or personifica- 
tion, 3 or self-deification, 4 or fear, 5 or deliberate deception. At 
the best, such hypotheses are merely hypotheses, resting on no 
basis of ascertained fact. The chief plausibility belonging to 

1 Sir John Lubbock, Origin of Civilization, 3d ed., p. 207 ; Darwin, De- 
scent of Man, vol. i. p. 66 ; Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology, chap. xi. 
He makes the impressions of dreams, swoons, etc., lead to the belief in ghosts, 
and this to ancestor-worship (chap, xx.), and this again to idol-worship, fetich- 
worship, etc. These various explanations may more or less run into one 
another. 

2 E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, chaps, xi.-xvii. 

8 Hume, Natural History of Religion, p. 317 (ed. Greene and Grose) ; 
John Fiske, Idea of God, p. 65. 

4 Feuerbach, Wesen des Christenthums, § 2. 

5 Lucretius, De Natura Rerun, vers. 1161-1240 ; Lange, Geschichte des 
Materialismus, p. 774 (4th ed., 1882) . An interesting instance of the dogmatic 
confidence with which some men can discourse about the origin of theism 
is found in M. J. Savage's Religion of Evolution (Boston, 1876), where the 
genesis of the notion of divine beings is stated to have been fear. Whatever 
moved, he says, was imagined to be alive ; and since men were hurt and killed 
by wild beasts, inanimate things, such as water, lightning, the sun, moon, etc., 
came to be feared also. " Thus they turned all these things into gods. . . . 
This was the original polytheism, or, in its lowest manifestation, fetichism " 
(p. 53). Five years later the same author, in his Belief in God (Boston, 
18S1), propounds another view; he rehashes Herbert Spencer's dream-theory, 
shows how naturally ancestor-worship grew up, and adds, " Out of this belief 
in ancestor-worship sprung, first, fetichism" ! (p. 19). In both cases the au- 
thor discourses as if he had been present and seen the process. 



22 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

these theories comes from the characteristics of the religion of 
certain degraded races. In fact, there lies at the foundation of 
all such theories the tacit or avowed assumption that theism 
is a grand illusion. 

It is a sufficient refutation of them to say, not merely that 
they are destitute of proof, but that they utterly overlook the 
main fact that needs to be explained. That dreams or inten- 
tional efforts to deceive should ever succeed in producing so 
persistent a notion as that of the existence and agency of su- 
perhuman beings, implies a pre-existent tendency to entertain 
such a notion. That any one should associate the conception of 
deity with certain special objects or activities of Nature pre- 
supposes a theistic sense, — a tendency to believe in super- 
natural agents. Without such a sense, that is, without theism 
already at least germinally existent in the mind, it would be 
impossible to account for the arbitrary act of associating nat- 
ural phenomena with supernatural agencies. These theories, 
therefore, are as shallow, psychologically considered, as they are 
destitute of basis, historically considered. 

Aside from all this, however, it is a conclusive refutation of 
these hypotheses that, if there were any truth in them, theism 
would fall before the first assault from enlightened reflection 
and science. That this is not the case is a sufficient evidence 
that the theistic sense is a deeper thing than the theories in 
question recognize. 

The same may be said of another hypothesis — a modi- 
fication of Schleiermacher's theory of the feeling of absolute 
dependence — which has considerable vogue, especially in Ger- 
many. It is thus stated by one of its advocates : * " Eeligion 

1 Kaftan, Wesen der christlichen Religion, p. 96. Similarly, Bender {Wesen 
der Religion, p. 38) : " Religion on its practical side is the exercise of the im- 
pulse of self-preservation in man, by means of which man seeks to maintain the 
essential ends of life, amidst the obstacles found in the world and at the limit 
of his power, by voluntarily rising up to the power that orders and controls 
the world." To the same effect is the definition given by Ritschl {Rechtfer- 
tigung und Versohnung, p. 17, 2d ed., 1883): "All religion is an interpreta- 
tion of the course of the world, to whatever extent it may be apprehended, in 
this sense : that the lofty spiritual Powers (or the spiritual Power) which hold 
sway in it or over it maintain or secure to the personal spirit its claims or its 



GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 23 

takes its rise when and because man, with his claim to life 
[Anspmich auf Zeben] and with his effort to satisfy it, comes 
to the limit of his power." This inability of himself to satisfy 
the cravings which the inborn love of life involves, leads man, 
we are told, to seek help from higher powers ; or, in the case 
of more degraded races, the religious impulse takes mostly the 
form of an attempt to propitiate the evil spirits that are con- 
ceived to obstruct men in their search of the comforts and en- 
joyments of life. This experience of limitation, it is said, is that 
which leads men to religion, " in that it becomes the occasion of 
seeking from the deity help for the want which has been experi- 
enced." l This is conceived to be an explanation of the origin 
of theistic notions which answers to all the varied forms of re- 
ligion. Prayer for help, sacrifices to propitiate, worship in all 
its forms, — these are regarded as evoked by the impulse to 
seek from superhuman sources the help which one needs in 
order to attain the good which he desires. 

No doubt a large part of the religion especially of the less 
cultivated races does consist in a purely selfish appeal for help 
to the invisible world. No doubt, also, this is an element which 
is found in all religions. Prayer implies dependence ; and prayer 
is a characteristic of all religions. But it does not therefore 
.follow that the notion of a divine being first grew out of the 
sense of impotence and the desire for help. 2 Given the belief in 

independence against the obstructions which come from Nature or the natu- 
ral workings of human society." Teichmuller (Religionxphilosophie, p. 24), 
acutely observes concerning it : " Ritschl's definition of all religion, which, 
carefully guarded by many precautionary clauses and well equipped with inter- 
calations and divisions, strides along like a camel loaded with a month's provi- 
sions, astonishes us by presenting to us religion as an interpretation, ... as 
something purely theoretical. . . . Against this definition religion itself must 
be defended ; for the religious man surely does not need to be so narrow as to 
think the course of the world conducted expressly for the ' securing of his 
claims' by the high spiritual Powers, when, say, his house is burned down, his 
cattle perish, his wife and children are stolen away, and he himself is attacked 
by the small-pox, or is scourged by a tyrant and sent to the quarries." 

1 Kaftan, Wesen der christlichen Religion, p. 96. 

2 " Through the mere sensation of hunger the new-born child by no means 
gains the conception of a means of nutrition ; still less through the mere feel- 
ing of his incapacity and impotence, the notion of the helping hand which is 



2± SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

higher beings, it is easily conceivable that human selfishness 
might be inclined to make use of them for its own benefit. 
But to hold that human impotence and selfishness created the 
belief is quite another thing, and is a pure assumption. It 
cannot, of course, even be pretended that any positive proof of 
such an origin can be given. An inference only is made from 
the actual characteristics of the prevailing religions. 

But the inference is without any inherent plausibility. That 
men should soon come to feel their impotence — should find 
that they have desires which they are unable of themselves to 
satisfy — is easy to see. But it does not follow that this sense 
of impotence would create the belief in invisible helpers. It 
might create the desire for help. But from this there is a long 
step to the actual belief that help is to be had, and that the 
help is to come from an invisible, superhuman source At the 
most, we may conjecture that rude men might grasp at the hope 
that help could be secured from some unknown source, and 
might address petitions to it. But unless we assume an ante- 
cedent notion of supernatural power as already existing in the 
mind, there is absolutely no reason why we should suppose 
that such men should, through the mere experience of weakness 
and helplessness, come to the assured conviction that there are 
divine helpers to whom they can appeal. And this all the less 
inasmuch as prayer addressed to merely imaginary beings for 
help out of the physical and material limitations and sufferings 
of life could not have met with such answers as would have 
convinced the petitioners that the imaginary beings were real. 
On the contrary, the petitions must for the most part have 
failed of a direct and favorable response ; and if the notion of 
the superhuman power was the mere product of the sense of 
need, the most natural result must have been the direst atheism. 
The sense of need must originally have had reference to the 
dangers arising from conflicts with enemies, the difficulty of 
making the earth contribute to human comfort and sustenance, 

to care for him. Just as little, manifestly, can the mere feeling of physical 
and moral helplessness, even when it has come to consciousness in the adult, 
of itself alone evoke the notion of a divine Helper." — Ulrici, Gott und die 
Xatur, p. 610. 



GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 25 

the impossibility of resisting the destructive and devastating 
forces of nature, the sufferings and grief that attend bodily sick- 
ness and death ; and if the experience of weakness and painful 
limitation led men to desire superior help, and if nothing but 
this desire led them to make supplication to the hypothetical 
deities, then, as soon as they found that their supplications or 
propitiations failed to produce the effect desired, they must have 
abandoned the hypothesis. If for other reasons the notion of 
a God had taken strong possession of men's minds, then we can 
understand why, even in spite of little apparent success in secur- 
ing direct answers to prayers for help, men should nevertheless 
persist in their supplications. But unless a theistic belief or at 
least a strong theistic impulse is presupposed, the mere sense of 
impotence could never of itself have produced the persistent 
theism which all religions have maintained. 

It is further to be objected to all these hypotheses, that they 
make the lowest forms of religion the standard in determining 
what the essence of religion is. The avowed object is to find a 
definition which covers all the forms of religion. But the result 
is a virtual assumption that those are right who make religion 
to have originated in the conceits of the lowest races of human- 
ity. It is assumed that these rude forms of religion are the 
-truly natural, primitive, and purely spontaneous forms. This is 
an utterly unwarranted assumption. In religion, as in other 
things, that holds true which Principal Caird affirms : 1 "It is 
not that which is commou to barbarism and civilization which 
is most truly human, but precisely that in which civilization 
differs from barbarism." It is from the genuine, purest form of 
religion, not from its lowest corruptions or crudest manifesta- 
tions, that we must derive a definition of its essential nature. 
Aside from this, moreover, it is a pure assumption, when the 
most degraded races of men are regarded as the true types of 
primitive man, and not rather as instances of degeneration. 2 

We come back, then, to the ground that the persistence of 

1 Philosophy of Religion, p. 82. 

2 Vide the controversy between Sir John Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, and 
Origin of Civilization, and the Duke of Argyll, Primeval Man. Cf. also 
Pressense, Study of Origins, pp. 467 sqq. 



26 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

theism in the face of doubts and contradictions must furnish the 
most probable indication of the ultimate ground of it, in so far 
as it rests on the basis of natural and spontaneous tendencies of 
the human mind. 

Now, when theism is assailed, no one ever thinks of defend- 
ing it on the ground that primitive races, or still existent races, 
have found themselves hampered by natural forces, and unable 
by their own power to get all the comfort and pleasure they de- 
sire. None the more is theism defended on the ground that it 
originated in dreams or supposed visions of ghosts. Eecourse 
to such an explanation would only confirm the objector in his 
opposition to theism. But the fact remains that, in spite of 
the opposition, the belief holds its own, and holds its own 
among the most intelligent of men. Of course many weak and 
inconclusive arguments may be resorted to. The impulse to 
defend what one has always held may lead one to the use of 
ineffective weapons. But in the course of time the contention 
of the opposing forces cannot but have eliminated the essen- 
tially weak and useless defenses. What has maintained itself 
and continues to be advanced as argument for the theistic be- 
lief must be presumed to have validity, and to be some index 
of what that tendency of the human mind is which has led 
men so generally to cling to the belief in a Divine Being. It is 
not necessary to assume that precisely the same mental process 
takes place in the defense of theism which originally gave rise 
to the belief. Nevertheless it is legitimate to assume that 
whatever there may have been in human nature which origi- 
nally led to theism must reappear in the arguments by which 
theism is now defended. That which was at first only ger- 
minal, not yet analyzed and unfolded, has come by degrees to 
be scientifically grasped and stated. It matters little or noth- 
ing whether this original conception of God be called a feeling 
or a cognition, so long as it is regarded as constituting in some 
sense a notion that there is a Divine Being distinct from the 
human agent. 

2. But, on the other hand, the problem of the origin of the- 
ism is not solved by asserting that the belief in a God is a 
direct intuition. 



GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 27 

There are few nowadays who would assert this in its strict- 
est form. The notion of a direct perception or intuition of 
God has for the most part disappeared, together with the gen- 
eral notion of innate ideas. But in a modified form it is still to 
be found. Schleiermacher's doctrine of the feeling of absolute 
dependence as being the foundation of all religion is an attempt 
to show that the religious sense is an ultimate fact in human 
consciousness. And when the matter is put in its most general 
form, the doctrine contains an indisputable truth. But it is a 
question how far the mere feeling of dependence, the conscious- 
ness of general impotence, as over against the forces of nature, 
can properly be called a religious feeling. Even when it takes 
the form of a sense of awe before the mystery of man's origin 
and destiny, the feeling can be called religious only in a very 
lax and dubious sense. Herbert Spencer may regard this sense 
of awe in the thought of the Great Unknown Force as an 
eminently religious feeling, — as being the substance of all re- 
ligion. But in and of itself it is scarcely more religious than 
the terror of a hare in the presence of pursuing hounds ; 
and it is a consistent carrying out of the Spencerian doctrine 
when evolutionists think they detect in dogs and other beasts 
the germs of a religious sense. Unless the sense of dependence 
takes the form of a sense of dependence on a Divine Being, it 
is not a distinctively religious feeling. It may, indeed, be re- 
garded as one of the features of human nature which lead men 
towards theistic conceptions ; but it is not the only one, and is 
not itself religion. 

Consequently, when the analogy of sense-perception is ap- 
plied to this case, and the feeling of dependence is said to 
involve a perception of God, just as the perception of the ex- 
ternal world is involved in the sensations which are experienced 
in the physical organism, 1 we can only say that the analogy is 
not a real one. If it were real, then the conclusion would have 
to be that God is as directly perceived as the material world is 
perceived; and this is practically equivalent to the doctrine 
that man has an immediate intuition of God. For though sen- 
sation and perception may be distinguished, yet they are insep- 

1 So N. Smyth, The Religions Feeling, chap. iv. 



28 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

arable and interdependent. The perception of an outward 
object is not the result of a process of reasoning. One does not 
say, " I have a sensation ; that sensation must have a cause ; 
and therefore the cause must be such and such a material ob- 
ject." The perception is, on the contrary, just as immediate as 
the sensation. They may differ in intensity ; but neither of 
them precedes the other, or is an inference from the other. If 
the religious feeling of dependence is called a sensation analo- 
gous to physical sensations, then the perception involved in it 
must be immediate and distinct, the direct consciousness of 
God ; and no argument can be needed to prove that there is 
such a consciousness. As soon as one undertakes to conduct 
such an argument, he has yielded the very position which he 
professes to maintain. 

No doubt it would seem to be very desirable to be able to be- 
lieve that the knowledge of God is as positive and direct as the 
knowledge of self. 1 A special temptation to resort to this view 
is created by the discredit into which the ordinary proofs of 
the Divine existence have fallen, especially since Kant's criti- 
cism of them. Since theists themselves thus confess that the 
arguments lack a strictly demonstrative character, atheists are 
fortified in their position ; and the theist, unwilling to concede 
that his fundamental tenet rests on an uncertain basis, is often 
led to resort to the desperate shift that the belief needs no ar- 
gument, being a direct intuition. But such an assumption is 
negatived at once by the obvious objection that a proper intui- 
tion must needs be universal, necessary, and essentially uni- 
form, — which cannot be affirmed of the theistic sense and its 
deliverances ; and by the further consideration that those who 
assert that they themselves are conscious of such an intuition 
have received the theistic doctrine as a communication from 
others, and have been so trained up in it that in any case it has 
become a sort of second nature to hold it. Such persons cannot 
possibly discriminate between what has come as a traditional 

1 So, e. g., Rothe, Theologische Ethik, § 6, who says that the religious 
man's " feeling of self is at the same time immediately a feeling of God; and 
he cannot raise the former to a clear and distinct thought of the Ego without 
at the same time having the thought of God." 



GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 29 

belief and what comes from direct perception. The so-called 
intuition is nothing more than the current belief. Xo effort, 
however intense, will suffice to enucleate the intuition as a dis- 
tinct thing, and make it satisfactory as an independent proof of 
the reality of the object of the faith. 

The temptation to assert the reality of a direct intuition of 
God is all the greater inasmuch as this cognition is not only of 
peculiar importance, but also of a peculiar kind, without any 
exact analogies. The external world is perceived through the 
medium of the senses ; God cannot be seen or felt. The knowl- 
edge of mathematical truths or of logical principles is a more 
purely intellectual cognition ; but it is a cognition of the rela- 
tion of things or persons, not a cognition of the existence of 
them. If, therefore, God is directly apprehended, there must be 
an altogether peculiar, a separate, sense for this cognition. The 
fact of such a sense can be proved only to those who are already 
conscious of having it And inasmuch as most men are not 
conscious of any such sense, there is an insuperable presumption 
that those who assert that they have it are laboring under a de- 
lusion, — that they mistake a belief derived from education and 
strengthened by reason for an immediate intuition. 

3. In the theistic controversy the presumption is in favor of 
theism. The mere fact that it has been the prevalent belief 
of mankind indicates that it is probably well-founded. Though 
we may not claim that every man intuitively knows that there 
is a God, it may be presumed, from the general existence of the 
belief, that there is good ground for it. Atheists, however, 
usually attempt to fortify their position by throwing the bur- 
den of proof on the theistic side. They seek to make it ap- 
pear that the presumption is in favor of atheism, and that 
nothing but demonstrative proof can suffice to overthrow that 
presumption. 

It must, however, in the first place, be remembered that in 
the last analysis all knowledge is no more than a firm belief, 
and that there cannot be a demonstration of anything as an 
objective existence. One can irresistibly demonstrate nothing 
but the necessity of the mind to think so or so concerning the 
relations of things whose existence is assumed : the demonstra- 



30 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

tion, however, is nothing but the recognition of the fact that 
the mind cannot contradict itself, cannot affirm and deny one 
and the same thing. With regard to everything else so-called 
demonstrations are nothing but inductions which yield a 
greater or less degree of probability, and produce more , or less 
firm belief. 

But, in the second place, it should be remembered that though 
it may seem more incumbent on the theist to prove his positive 
doctrine than on the atheist to prove his negative one, yet in 
reality the atheist maintains a positive proposition as much as 
the theist does. He must hold the positive doctrine that the 
universe is self-existent. He must hold the positive doctrine 
that the origin and changes of the various forms of existence are 
to be attributed to a purposeless chance. Whether the atheistic 
or the theistic doctrine is to be called positive depends simply 
on the form of statement. In either case the problem is to 
give a philosophical explanation of acknowledged facts. The 
atheist is as much bound to explain them as the theist is. 1 

4. The argument for theism is felt most forcibly when it is 
seen in the light of the legitimate and necessary implications of 
atheism. When the theistic argument is conducted directly, 
every defect in it, every inconclusive feature in it, is looked on 
by the atheist as an evidence of the weakness of the general 
doctrine. Whereas, if atheism is for the moment assumed to be 
the true theory of the universe, we meet with difficulties in- 
comparably greater than those which can be alleged against 
theism. Let us pursue this line of thought. 

One thing is certain: Either there is a personal, sovereign 
God, or there is not. Even if the proofs of his existence were 
ever so inconclusive, the result at the most would be only that we 
are left in doubt. But the doubt whether the one or the other 
theory is correct does not make any middle ground possible as 
to the fact. If one is not satisfied that the universe is governed 

1 Fide B. P. Bowne, Studies in Theism, p. 5. Also G. Matheson, Can the 
Old Faith live with the New? 1885, who forcibly shows that the atheist does 
not even avoid the supernaturalism which it is his object to expel from 
thought, but is forced, at certain points, to assume a violation of the laws 
which he declares to be inviolable (pp. 35 sqq.). 



GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 31 

by a personal God, then, if thoroughly rational, he must adjust 
his conceptions to the opposite assumption, with all its neces- 
sary consequences. What are those consequences ? 

The atheist must hold that the universe, with all its processes 
and history, is, as a whole, aimless and meaningless. He must 
hold that the material world is uncreated and eternal, but un- 
dergoes an endless series of changes. If the cause of these 
changes is inquired after, it must be answered that the cause 
inheres in the universe itself. That is, it must be the nature 
of things to change just as they do change. A rigid necessity 
must appertain to everything; and that necessity is a force 
without thought, will, or feeling. For the world as a whole 
there can have been, on this theory, no purpose ; for purpose 
implies a personal agent, and originally there was nothing but 
impersonal matter. In the process of evolution, it is true, 
matter in some cases takes on the form of organisms which 
think, feel, and will ; and these organisms are called persons. 
But no personal agency was operative in producing these per- 
sons. It was simply the nature of things to evolve at a certain 
stage these thinking objects. Nature, itself utterly unconscious, 
produces beings that know more than nature does. But all the 
knowledge, all the purposes and choices of men, are only a part 
of the necessary course of things. Even though the course of 
things should be called fortuitous, still everything must have 
been just as it has been, since to say that anything else was 
possible is to say that there was some other power distinct 
from the forces of nature, — another power which might have 
produced a different result. But this is contrary to the atheistic 
postulate, which does not allow that any such merely possible 
force can exist. The hypothesis can indeed have no meaning, 
unless this other power is a person, possessing a free will. But 
free will, even in the persons produced by the impersonal force 
of nature, is impossible on the materialistic theory. Men may 
have purposes ; but whatever they purpose is determined rigidly 
by the blind forces back of all. Mind, so-called, is nothing but 
matter acting in a certain way. Given certain combinations of 
particles, and the result must be certain thoughts, volitions, and 
actions, as truly as under certain conditions water must freeze. 



32 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

That which compels men to form purposes has itself no purpose in 
this compulsory act. The blind, unintelligent, purposeless force 
which underlies everything is stronger than all conscious purpose, 
and transforms all apparent purpose ultimately into unmeaning 
purposelessness. For, the designs which individuals conceive 
and execute are only links in a great complex of causes and 
effects, which is itself without thought and design. The greater 
force must control the lesser. The universe, as a whole, has, 
on the hypothesis in question, no meaning, — no aim, no pur- 
pose. There is no reason why anything is as it is, except that 
it must be so. Free will and moral responsibility are impos- 
sible. The common notion that there is such a thing is an 
illusion. But everything being necessary, the illusion also is 
necessary. When one thinks he has discovered the fact of the 
illusion, this discovery is also something necessary ; and when 
another thinks he has shown that free will is no illusion, this 
demonstration is equally necessary. There is nothing in the 
world that can be called good in the sense that a good intention 
determined the production of it. That which produces the so- 
called bad has no less, and no more, of good in it than that 
which produces the so-called good. Good and evil are, in fact, 
relative terms, — evil meaning only that which is disagreeable 
to certain temporary sensations of certain of the beings who 
have come into existence through no purpose, good or bad. 
Ill desert and good desert in a moral sense are of course impos- 
sible. That which must be is not to be blamed for being, and 
is entitled to no praise for being. When men blame or praise, 
as they do, they cannot, it is true, do otherwise ; but their 
praise and blame cannot imply that anything could have been 
other than it is. If nothing could have been different, then it can- 
not be said that anything ought to have been different. Moral 
good and moral evil being only illusory notions, the urging of 
moral motives upon men, the attempt to excite in them emo- 
tions of remorse, or to spread before them moral ideals, is a 
sort of fraud. Yet there being nothing morally praiseworthy or 
blameworthy, it is as well to practise the fraud as not ; do as 
we may, we cannot do otherwise. Enthusiasm over moral ex- 
cellence and indignation over moral depravity are both absurd, 



GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 33 

but both are unavoidable. All our emotions and thoughts are 
only phenomena necessarily produced by the mighty force 
which in itself has no thought, or emotion, or purpose, or 
moral character, — nothing good and nothing bad. 1 

Furthermore, not only are all moral distinctions and judg- 
ments illusory ; but also, on the basis of atheistic material- 
ism, truth and untruth become also illusory and meaningless. 
Thought being nothing but a secretion of the brain, it is as ab- 
surd to call one thought true and another untrue, as it would be 
to call the secretion of saliva true or false. The theist's thoughts 
being just as unavoidable as the atheist's, the latter cannot, 
without absurdity, call his own thoughts true and the theist's 
false. " If thought and all combinations of thought are noth- 
ing but the result of a simple natural process, which, being as 
such under the given circumstances and conditions unavoidable, 
must result so and not otherwise, then all thoughts, all concep- 
tions, judgments, and conclusions have absolutely equal right; 
to none of them can be ascribed any superiority to the others." 2 
In short, pure materialism ends in pure absurdity. 

Essentially the same result is reached if we adopt the specula- 
tions of Herbert Spencer. Whether the system should be called 
atheism or pantheism, materialism or idealism, may be disputed; 3 
but its doctrine of the relativity of knowledge is logically the 
doctrine of despair concerning the attainment of truth. When 
experience is made the sole criterion of knowledge, and experi- 
ence is affirmed to have to do only with phenomena, and phenom- 
ena are declared to be nothing but modifications of consciousness, 
it is manifest that, according to this, all experiences are equally 
valid and equally invalid, and all so-called knowledge is nothing 
but a series of more or less permanent impressions. 

But is not human knowledge imperfect and full of mistakes ? 
Certainly. Yet this affirmation itself could not be made unless 
some things were assuredly known. Possible or even probable 
truth does not make the fact of error certain. But nothing is 

1 Cf. Dorner, Christian Ethics, § 9. 

2 Ulrici, Gott und der Mensch, vol. i. p. 4 (ed. 1). Cf. also Professor Fisher, 
Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief, p. 82. 

3 See Excursus II. in the Appendix. 



34 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

more certain than that errors are real. And it is just because 
the mind does know that human knowledge is mixed with 
error, while yet this prerogative of knowledge is seen to be that 
which marks mind as infinitely superior to the irrational objects 
of its cognition, — it is just for this reason that there springs 
up, as by instinct, in the soul the feeling that there must be a 
Person whose knowledge is free from error and imperfection. 
The more men come to know, through microscopic, telescopic, 
and chemical observation, of the marvellous beauty and com- 
plexity of the universe, the more is there suggested of the 
immensity of the realms yet unknown ; and the more urgent 
is the impulse to believe that all things that can be known are 
known by an omniscient Being. And another side of the same 
impulse is the feeling that this faculty of knowledge, so glo- 
rious in spite of its imperfections, could not have been the 
chance product of a force which is itself without it. 1 

1 Mr. Royce, in his Religious Aspect of Philosophy, argues acutely against the 
doctrine of the total relativity of truth, and from the indisputable fact of error 
builds up an argument for the existence of an Infiuite Thought. " Either there is 
no such thing as error, which statement is a flat contradiction, or else there is 
an infinite unity of conscious thought to which is present all possible truth " 
(p. -±24). This Infinite Thought, however, is conceived to be destitute of 
Power ; and so his God is the direct opposite of the Spencerian's. The one is 
Intelligence without Power ; the other is Power without Intelligence. And 
in both cases the existence of evil seems to be in part the fact which leads to 
the assumption adopted. Travelling by a different route, both come to a form 
of Idealism. But the Spencerian accepts Berkeley's God with the knowledge 
left out, while Mr. Royce accepts him with the power left out. Both leave 
out final causes. Mr. Royce is particularly zealous for his theory, because it 
was the means of leading him out of blank skepticism. It is doubtful, how- 
ever, whether it will be so successful with others. His argument (pp. 375 sq.) 
that there is an absolute distinction between truth and error, is irresistible. 
But when lie afterwards (chap, xi.) argues from this, not merely that there is 
absolute truth, but that there must be an Infinite Thought that judges be- 
tween truth and error, the argument will hardly compel conviction. It is not 
enough, he urges, to say that " an error is a thought such that, if a critical 
thought did come and compare it with its object, it would be seen to be false " 
(p. 426). "No barely possible judge . . . will do for us. He must be 
there, this judge, to constitute the error" (p. 427)- Apart from the absolute 
knowledge no human judgment, he says, can be called an error, since "we 
cannot see how a single sincere judgment should possibly fail to agree with its 



GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 35 

Now, it may be admitted that this is not a demonstrative ar- 
gument. Truth would be truth, even if it were true that there 

own chosen object" (p. 405). When two persons judge each other, each 
one thinks only about his idea of the other ; " each thinks of his phantom of 
the other. Only a third person, who included them both, . . . only such an 
inclusive thought could compare the phantom with the real, and only in him, 
not in themselves, would John aud Thomas have any ideas of each other at 
all, true or false" (p. 416). It is hard to see how so acute a mind can ar- 
gue so absurdly. How, in the name of reason, can the Infinite Thought, 
either by inclusion or exclusion, constitute my thought either an error or a 
truth ? If my thought is contrary to the fact, neither finite nor infinite 
knowledge (spelled with or without a capital K) can constitute it truthful; 
if it is a truthful thought, no Knowledge or Power can constitute it a false- 
hood. This Absolute Knowledge is called also Absolute Truth (p. 423). 
What does this mean unless that it knows absolutely what is true ? But this 
implies that judgments are true or false in themselves. If not, this Knowledge 
must be supposed to be possessed of power (which it is not allowed to have) 
to make judgments false or true according to its own caprice. A similar 
misty pantheism is found in Mr. Royce's doctrine of evil. The fact of evil, 
physical and moral, he admits. But " partial evil is universal good " (p. 264). 
" The fundamental postulate of religion [is] that universal goodness is some- 
how at the heart of tilings " (p. 331). So far we might go with him. But 
(p. 335) we find this interpreted to mean that " the deepest assertion of ideal- 
ism is, not that above all the evil powers in the world there is at work some 
good power mightier than they, but rather that through all the powers, good 
/md evil, and in them all, dwells the higher spirit that does not so much create 
as constitute them what they are, and so include them all." " In God the 
evil will of all who sin is present, a real fact in the Divine Life, no illusion in 
so far as one sees that it exists in God and nowhere else, but for that very rea- 
son an element, and a necessary element, in the total goodness of the Universal 
Will. . • . The gocd act has its existence and life in the transcending of ex- 
perienced present evil. . . . Goodness is the organism of struggling elements. 
. . . God's life is this infinite rest, not apart from but in the endless strife " 
(pp. 458 sqq.). So far as any meaning can be got out of this, it seems to be 
either that evil is a necessary means of good (which the author denies, 
p. 268), or else that evil is really no evil (which he also denies, p. 266). 

Principal Caird (Philosophy of Religion, 1880) propounds a similar argu- 
ment to the above, so far as the standard of truth is concerned. " The secret 
or implicit conviction on which all knowledge rests, and to which all individual 
opinions and beliefs are referred, is that absolute truth is ; or, in other words, 
that though my thought may err, there is an absolute thought or intelligence 
which it is impossible to doubt" (p. 128). "No assertion, no single ex- 
perience or act of consciousness, is possible, save as presupposing an ulti- 
mate intelligence which is the measure and the ground of all finite thought " 



36 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

were no God. It would still be true that the earth revolves 
around the sun, even if there were no personal Power con- 
trolling and observing the celestial motions. All we insist on 
is that there is an almost insuperable impulse in the human 
soul which tends to make men believe that truth is not only a 
fact, but a known fact ; that above all the ignorance and error 
which beset human knowledge there must be an omniscient 
Being whose knowledge constitutes a perfect standard of truth. 
Similarly, if the question is concerning the origin of intelli- 
gence, it is not, strictly speaking, inconceivable that the blind 
working of atomic forces might in process of time develop a 
combination of atoms which has the faculty of knowledge. Yet 
since nothing can be in an effect which is not implicitly in the 
cause, it must be assumed that in this case the original atoms 
were germinally endowed with intelligence. What this germi- 
nal intelligence could have been ; in what sense the ultimate 
particles of matter may be conceived to be all of a psychical 
nature (according to the notion of Leibnitz or of Schopenhauer), 
it might be hard to make clear to one's mind. It is at best a 
misty notion, and cannot explain the unity and persistence of 
an individual consciousness. 1 Still, if one chooses to hold such 
a view, there is no means of demonstrating that it is absolutely 
absurd. But the ordinary mind will not be able to repress the 
impulse to feel that the phenomena of human intelligence re- 
quire for their production an intelligence at least equal to that 
of man himself. 



(p. 129). Such assertions can hardly carry conviction except to a Hegelian 
mind. Dr. Caird argues thus (p. 131) : " If we try to annul all existence, to 
think that nothing exists, the nothing is still a thinkable nothing, a nothing 
that is for thought, or that implies a thought or consciousness behind it. 
Thus all our conscious life as individuals rests on or implies a consciousness 
that is universal. We cannot think, save on the presupposition of a thought or 
consciousness which is the unity of thought and being, or on which all indi- 
vidual thought and existence rest." All which has no point unless on the 
idealistic assumption that thought creates the object of thought, though even 
then it does not appear how an individual's thought necessarily presupposes a 
universal consciousness which unites thought and being. 

1 Vide Lotze's discussion of this in his Mikrokosmus, vol. i. pp. 176-182 
(Eng. transl., vol. i. pp. 158-163). 



GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 37 

And what holds true respecting Intelligence holds also respect- 
ing Morality. Numberless as are the theories concerning morals, 
and various as are the manifestations of the moral sense in men, 
nothing is more certain than that in the developed man the 
moral sense is a fact. Men think not only of what is, but of 
what ought to be, Notions of right and wrong form a class by 
themselves, and the highest class of notions which spring up in 
the soul. Even the coarsest forms of hedonism fail to eliminate 
the unique peculiarity. If the highest good is made to consist 
simply in the procuring of pleasure for one's self or for others, 
still the conclusion is that one ought to labor to secure that pleas- 
ure, — that to do so is right, and not to do so is wrong. Even the 
extrernest theory of the evolutionary origin of conscience still 
leaves the conscience an undisputed fact. Though it may be 
argued that the moral sense is only the final outcome of cosmic 
forces that have been working for ages upon ages, having its 
germ in the unconscious efforts of the lower forms of animal 
life to maintain themselves, and gradually developing into the 
conscious egoism, ego-altruism, and altruism which are found in 
the human race, still the fact remains, that in the developed 
form the notion of duty is the one essential feature, whereas in 
the germinal form that notion could have had no place. It is 
in a sense true, no doubt, that the acorn is the germ of the oak ; 
but the characteristic features of the oak cannot be determined 
by any amount of microscopic or chemical examination of the 
acorn. And no more can the essence of morality be analyzed 
and unfolded by any amount of observation of the phenomena 
of animal life, from those of the lowest of the invertebrata up 
to the highest of the non-human species. Even the most un- 
qualified form of necessitarianism leaves the unique character- 
istic of the moral nature undisturbed. The moral ideal, the 
feeling of obligation, the sense of remorse, the condemnation or 
approval of other men as blameworthy or praiseworthy, — all 
this remains, and is implicitly admitted, even when explicitly 
denied. The notion of the freedom of the will, especially in the 
sense of unreasoning caprice, 1 may be triumphantly proved to 

1 A notion held by almost no one, yet the one reasoned against most ener- 
getically by necessitarians; e.g., J. S. Mill, Examination of Sir Wm. Hamil- 
ton's Philosophy, chap. xxvi. 



38 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

be absurd and illusory. It may be argued that no one can 
create the motives that lead him to action, and that every one 
must be determined by the strongest motive. It may be in- 
sisted that the truth of this principle is assumed, when men 
attempt by legislation or other means to deter others from bad 
actions or to incite them to good ones. But underneath all this 
lies the tacit implication that it is right to deter men from 
crime by the threat of punishment, that it would be wrong 
not to use whatever measures will tend to further the general 
welfare of men, that it is our duty to use means to promote the 
operation of good motives. 1 A sense of obligation is felt which 
is not self-imposed, and which cannot be created or annulled by 
one's self or by the authority of other men, however numerous 
or powerful they may be. The law of righteousness, whether 
obeyed or not, is acknowledged to be the supreme standard ac- 
cording to which conduct should be regulated. 

Now, what is the bearing of this fact upon the question of the- 
ism ? From the mere existence of this idea of a moral law we 
cannot directly and necessarily infer the existence of a Divine 
Lawgiver, — a being whose power and will created the law. To 
such an inference the unanswerable objection at once presents 

1 An instance of thorough-going necessitarianism is found in H. G. Atkin- 
son and Harriet Martineau's Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature and De- 
velopment : " I am what I am, a creature of necessity ; I claim neither merit 
nor dement " (p. 30.). " I am what I am ; I cannot alter my will, or be other 
than what I am, and cannot deserve either reward or punishment" (p. 191). 
"Free will ! the very idea is enough to make a Democritus fall on his back 
and roar with laughter, and a more serious thinker almost despair of bringing 
men to reason " (p. 194). "Of course, as a part of nature, as a creature of 
necessity, as governed by law, man is neither selfish nor unselfish, neither good 
nor evil, worthy or unworthy, but simply nature, and what is possible to 
nature, and could not be otherwise " (p. 232). Yet even the one who writes 
thus can belabor those who disagree with him, and discourses on morality. 
" The knowledge which mesmerism gives of the influence of body on body, and 
consequently of mind on mind, will bring about a morality we have not yet 
dreamed of" (p. 280). So H. Czolbe {Neue Darstellung des Sensualismus, 
p. 92) says the criminal is " forced by physical necessity " to commit crime, 
but that society is "justified "in punishing him. "Justified," we suppose, 
in the same sense in which the ocean is justified in breaking through the 
dams which are built up to hinder its free flow. But why do we not speak of 
the oceans rights or duties ? 






GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 39 

itself that, if this Divine Being is conceived as a moral being, 
then he must himself be amenable to the moral law. He can- 
not have made the law capriciously. There must be an eternal 
and immutable reason for its requirements. The law must, 
therefore, logically precede divine volition, and cannot be the 
mere product of it. 1 

Is, then, atheism as consistent with high moral ideals and 
aims as theism is ? Far from it. No doubt an atheist may cher- 
ish a lofty ideal of moral character. Certain notions and rules 
of justice may become prevalent, and be essentially the same, 
whatever religious instruction accompanies them. But if athe- 
istic theories of the moral law and the moral sense become gen- 
erally and practically accepted, they cannot but ultimately 
react fatally on the moral sense itself ; or if they do not, the 
fact that they do not is itself a proof that the theories are false. 
Atheism breaks down in its effort to explain the moral sense as 
regards either its origin, its present icorking, or its ultimate end. 

a. As to the origin of the sense of moral obligation, the the- 
istic theory is simple. It cannot indeed be held that God arbi- 
trarily created the moral law ; but it can be held that God is 
the personal embodiment of the law, and that he implants in 
the human soul the moral sense which apprehends the law and 
recognizes the obligation to conform to it. Atheism, on the 
contrary, has no better hypothesis than that moral notions and 
feelings have been gradually evolved from mere animal impulses 
of self-preservation. Begard for the comforts and pleasure of 
others is held to be the outgrowth of a discovery that such re- 
gard will in the long run best promote one's own pleasure and 
advantage. 2 But this is, after all, no explanation of the real 

1 On this vide Noah Porter, Moral Science, § 46 ; I. A. Dorner, Christian 
Doctrine, § 6; S.Harris, Philosophical Basis of Theism, § 37. 

2 H. Spencer, Data of Ethics, chaps, xi., xii. The theory that the moral sense 
and moral conceptions are purely matters of heredity, though often propounded 
as if it were an axiomatic truth, is simply not true to the facts of observation. 
Whatever there may be (and there is no doubt something) in the notion of the 
hereditary transmission of moral tendencies, the general fact is that moral 
notions are inculcated by training, not infused by physical propagation. A 
man's character depends much more on his education than on his parentage. 
Even physical habits are largely due to the imitativeness of children more than 
to physical inheritance. Much more is this true of moral tendencies. 



40 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

phenomenon. For, in the first place, if the moral sense is noth- 
ing but a development of the mere instinctive love of pleasura- 
ble life, it does not appear where the sense of duty comes from 
or what it means. It may be very true that men might by 
gradual experience have come to see that certain lines of con- 
duct towards other men are most advantageous to themselves ; 
but it does not appear why men should come to think that they 
ought to labor for the promotion either of their own happiness 
or of the happiness of others. If men, like brutes, have in- 
stincts or impulses leading them to care for their offspring or to 
be kind to their associates, or if they have made the discovery 
that their own greatest enjoyment is thus secured, very well, 
this may explain why they do so and so, but does not explain 
in the least why they should think that they ought to do so. 

But, in the next place, if the conscience is supposed somehow 
to have been evolved, and to be an actual factor in human life, 
still so long as it is regarded as being ultimately nothing but an 
impulse urging one to the securing of his own highest enjoy- 
ment, it does not appear how this impulse could ever assume 
the form, which it has acquired in fact, of an imperative obli- 
gation to cherish universal benevolence. So far as the underlying 
impulse is a craving for personal ease and pleasure, the obliga- 
tion towards others can dictate only such conduct as is seen to 
procure this personal comfort. The impulse will prompt one to 
outwit and deceive and injure others whenever the immediate 
effect seems likely to be a personal gratification ; and on the 
theory under consideration such deceit and injury would be 
duty. But even though it should be urged that experience has 
ascertained that selfish pleasure is in the end always best se- 
cured by promoting the pleasure of others, still this would bring 
us only to the point of pursuing a certain course of conduct 
towards one's immediate associates; it would not enjoin the 
love of man for man's own sake. The theory does not account 
for that sense of the duty of all-embracing and uncompromising 
benevolence which has in fact been developed. 

But, finally, the evolutionary theory of conscience does not 
account for the conception of a law that is one, universal, eter- 
nal, and immutable. A rule of life springing from an egoistic 



GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 41 

regard to pleasure would be a rule for one's self alone, so that 
in strictness there would be as many laws as there are persons. 
So far as conduct relates to one's associates, too, it can on this 
theory have no unity ; for one man's neighbors are quite differ- 
ent from another's ; and every one's associates are always chang- 
ing. So far as conduct has relation to a distant future, there is 
still less occasion to attribute to it the character of unity and 
uniformity. Now, of course there is in point of fact a want of 
unity and uniformity in the moral ideals and conduct of men. 
The differences amount to mutual contradiction, so far as the 
details of moral duty are concerned. But in every developed 
conscience the sense of duty involves the idea of a universal 
and eternal law. The theist, however, may hold that, just be- 
cause this moral law is not fulfilled in man as he now is, while 
yet the conscience insists on its imperativeness, its absolute and 
universal validity, therefore there must needs be a Being in 
whom the law is actually realized. The more distinctly moral 
obligation is acknowledged, and the more elevated one's moral 
ideal is, the more urgently does one feel the need of a personal 
God who realizes in himself this ideal, and who presides over 
the moral universe, able to tell infallibly what the law of recti- 
tude is, and authorized to punish the bad, reward the good, and 
in general to promote, by intelligent agency, the interests of the 
moral world. 

But to the atheist the phenomena of the moral sense must be 
a perpetual enigma. For him there is no explanation of their ori- 
gin, no reconciliation of their divergences, no prospect of the ful- 
filment of the prophecies which lie wrapped up in the ideals and 
the imperatives of the human conscience. But more particularly : 
b. Atheism, whether of the materialistic or the pantheistic 
type, is not only unable to solve the problem of the origin of 
the moral sense, but is put to confusion by its present working. 
A universe that has come into being through the operation of 
purely material and unconscious forces has no room in it for free 
will or for the notion that anything is wrong. If everything is as • 
it is by virtue of an iron necessity, then the consistent atheist 
can recognize no such thing as duty, can cherish no such feeling 
as blame, and can make no effort to effect any reform. It is 



42 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

true that many men of this class do lay great stress on moral- 
ity, and even profess to advocate a purer morality than theists 
do. But they can do it only by an unconscious denial of their 
fundamental assumptions. It is indeed almost amusing, after 
reading treatises whose object it is to set forth how all organ- 
isms have been developed by a necessary process from inorganic 
and unconscious matter, to be told at last that this doctrine is 
going to result in great advantage to the human race. Hackel, 
for example, predicts that " by its aid we shall at last begin to 
raise ourselves out of the state of social barbarism in which, 
notwithstanding the much vaunted civilization of our century, 
we are still plunged. ... It is above all things necessary to 
make a complete and honest return to nature and to natural 
relations." 1 But the fundamental doctrine of materialistic evo- 
lutionism is that whatever is is necessary. " Barbarism " is a 
word which it has no right to apply to any stage of the process. 
When one speaks of the necessity of returning to nature and 
natural relations, the language, if it means anything, means that 
a part of nature — to wit, the human race — has somehow got 
away from nature. But what is nature, in the view of Hackel, 
but the sum total of what is ? What are natural laws but the 
actual method of the working of things, inorganic and organic ? 
If men squander property, health, and life ; if they lie, steal, 
and murder, — that must be, according to Hackel's philosophy, 
the natural and necessary course of things. What, then, can 
be meant by saying that it is necessary for men to do otherwise 
than they do ? From such a source such talk is an unconscious 
violation of the very system in whose name it is uttered. 2 It 
involves the notion of duty, and of a duty wrongfully neglected, 
— of unnature as being a part of nature. The thing proposed 
is to change the course of things. But if the course of things 
is all natural, then why should it be changed ? How can it be 
changed ? Such a change would have to be from the natural 
to the unnatural, — just the opposite of what Hackel pro- 
nounces to be the great desideratum. In short, atheistic evolu- 

1 E. H. Hackel, History of Creation, vol. ii. pp. 367, 368, London, 1876. 
In the original Natiirliche Schbpfungsgeschichte, 7th ed., 1879, p. 680. 

2 Cf. T. H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 9. 



GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 43 

tionisni can acknowledge the binding obligation of a moral 
law only by committing suicide. 

c. Equally, or still more manifestly, is atheism a failure when 
the future of the moral world is considered. The notion that 
the mental and moral faculties of men are nothing but the 
evolution of physical forces necessarily carries with it, as a cor- 
ollary, the belief that physical death puts a final end to the 
existence of the conscious soul. And in fact the two notions 
are almost always found together. 1 That which is held to be 
nothing but a power or function of a physical organism must be 
thought to cease when the organism is dissolved. The inference 
seems to be unavoidable : Either mind is something distinct from 
the natural forces which are supposed to have been eternally at 
work, or else it is only one form which those forces assume in 
the course of evolution. In the latter case mental action must, 
like all force, be transformable into other forms of force. The 
whole amount of force being conceived as absolutely fixed and 

1 That Mr. Fiske Las avowed his belief in personal immortality can only 
be regarded as a Lappy inconsistency, which he can hardly convince any one 
but himself that he is not guilty of. He insists, indeed, that his doctrine is 
quite opposed to materialism (Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 79 and elsewhere) ; 
but his reason is that, though physical and mental action are correlated, yet the 
-physical does not explain the mental. Very true ; and likewise inorganic ac- 
tion does not explain the organic. Yet the evolutionist would hardly hold that 
vegetable life is a distinct entity, so that e. g. the life of the mushroom is to be 
regarded as immortal. So long as life and mind are held to be but an uncon- 
scious evolution of primeval matter — no force added and none taken away — 
there is no escape, but an illegitimate one, from the inference that death puts 
an end to mental action. Mr. Fiske assures us (vol. i. p. 65) that, since the 
use of the balance has shown experimentally that nothing ever disappears, it is 
no longer possible to believe in the destructibility of matter. The logic of 
this is rather remarkable. To most men the fact that experiments have as 
yet indicated that changes in the form of matter do not involve a disappear- 
ance of matter could hardly be a demonstration that matter never does disap- 
pear ; at the most one could only infer that we do not know that it ever does. 
Still less can it be inferred that it has become impossible to believe in the de- 
structibility of matter. But if the balance is such an infallible and omniscient 
test of existence hud persistence, and if the soul after the death of the body 
persists as a distinct entity, then the balance ought to be able to show the fact. 
For a good treatment of this topic cf. J. Martineau, Modern Materialism, 
pp. 137 sqq., New York, 1877- 



44 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

incapable of increase or decrease, the supposition that, upon the 
death of the body, the soul continues forever afterwards as a 
distinct force detached from the evolutionary process of the 
great complex of physical forces, is a violation of the funda- 
mental doctrine of the system. It would imply that mind is 
something created outright by the physical forces, — a supposi- 
tion for which atheistic or pantheistic evolutionism has no room. 
According to this system, human life is only a succession of in- 
dividual lives, each one of which, after passing through its brief 
period of conscious pain and pleasure, is irretrievably ended. 
"Whether the pain or the pleasure is the greater, is itself a mat- 
ter of dispute. Whether one shall be a pessimist, with Scho- 
penhauer and Yon Hartmann, or an optimist, with Herbert 
Spencer, depends largely or wholly on training and natural 
temperament. But the prospect is dismal enough at the best. 
Hopes may be cherished respecting the distant future of the 
race ; but there is no sure warrant for the hope. Mr. Spencer's 
own doctrine recognizes a principle of dissolution as well as one 
of development. But even if the hope of a gradual elevation of 
the human race is cherished, still those who cherish it can never 
see it realized, since their conscious existence is extinguished at 
death. And even if we could know that ages hence culture and 
heredity combined would produce generations of men whose 
lives are to be free from suffering, what of that ? At the best, 
each individual life is short, and ends in nothing. There may 
be found a certain beauty in it, but it is the beauty of a torso, 
the meaning and design of which is an insoluble enigma. Life, 
even in that imaginary future, would consist only of a series of 
phenomena most fitly to be compared to the rise and fall of 
waves on the great ocean. As the several waves emerge from 
the level surface and sink into it again, so out of the great All, 
at one point and another, there emerges a conscious life which, 
after its brief course is run, is destined to be lost again in the 
great unconscious mass of forces that constitute the ultimate 
reality. These fitful waves are endowed with the capacity of 
thought, of pleasure, and of hope. They become inspired with 
ideals and with aspirations that reach out into eternity. They 
are possessed with a longing for the privilege of unceasing ad- 



GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 45 

vance and greater and greater freedom of development in the 
conscious life with which they have been invested. But all this 
is a mere phenomenon of the fleeting consciousness. And when 
each individual life is merged again in the great unthinking, un- 
knowing, unfeeling, unhoping ocean of being, one can only say 
of it, — 

" Like the dew on the mountain, like the foam on the river, 
Like the bubble on the fountain, thou art gone, and forever." 

One who adopts the materialistic view in earnest will hardly 
be able to avoid asking himself the questions : Why should I 
vex myself with either hopes or fears respecting the future of 
the human race, seeing that I can never know anything about 
it ? Why should I regulate my conduct with reference to men 
who are not yet born ? Why, in general, should I take pains to 
work for any particular development of the race ? If men are 
nothing but brutes in a higher stage of development ; if this 
development has come about by a natural process which has 
taken care of itself, — then why not let the future development 
also take care of itself ? Why trouble ourselves with notions 
as to what course the evolution ought to take ? Why try to 
take into our own hands, the management of the process 
which belongs to nature herself ? How do we know what di- 
rection evolution may take in the future ? How can we be 
sure that, even with the best intentions, we may not be working 
against, rather than for, the end towards which the cosmic 
forces are tending ? This is not a merely imaginary state of 
mind. It is precisely what many materialistic evolutionists 
openly avow. 1 

When any one takes this ground, it is hard to see how the 
disbeliever in a personal God, however altruistic, can well reply 
to him. For both alike hold that there is no free self-deter- 
mination, that all things are controlled by a rigid necessity, and 
that human knowledge is limited to present phenomena, so 
that what has been in the past, and, still more, what is to be in 
the future, is utterly beyond the reach of cognition. Both alike 

1 See illustrations in Professor Harris's Philosophical Basis of Theism, 
pp. 475-486. 



46 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

must hold that no intelligence determines the process that is 
taking place. If so, then there can be no design in the process 
as a whole, no plan according to which it is working ; there is 
accordingly not only no Moral Governor controlling the system, 
but it has in itself no known moral end ; there is and can be no 
fixed and universally binding law ; but rather each individual 
can only do whatever he is impelled to do by the forces which 
are operating on him and in him. 

It is only an impotent and self -contradictory effort to avoid 
this dismal conclusion, when, after having eliminated a personal 
Moral Governor from the universe, atheists and pantheists per- 
sonify an abstraction, and talk about a moral order of the uni- 
verse, 1 or about a power outside themselves which makes for 
righteousness. Such talk implies that there is something fixed 
in the notion of righteousness or moral order. And this, again, 
implies a certain authoritativeness in the conceptions of the 
mind, a certain definiteness and permanency in the deliverances 
of the moral judgment. But such permanence and authority 
are impossible on the atheistic or pantheistic basis. The mind 
which is itself only the incidental product of the play of cosmic 
forces cannot set itself up as superior to them or as possess- 
ing any immutable character whatever. What we seem to 
know we only seem to know. The present phenomena of the 
moral sense not only differ among themselves, but are liable to 
be succeeded by other phenomena different from all the present 
ones. Righteousness thus becomes a thing of no fixed meaning. 
The conception of it, even if not soon destined to become ex- 
tinct, is at the best variable and vague. To say that a power 
outside of us is making for it is to say nothing intelligible on 

1 Fichte's favorite phrase. Vide his Ueber den Grund unseres Glaubens an 
eine gottlieke Weltregierung , where he says, "This moral order is the Divine, 
which we assume " (vol. v. p. 183 of his Sammtliche Werke, Berlin, 1845). 
" That living and active moral order is itself God " (p. 186). Whether Fichte 
should be called an atheist (against which he vehemently protested) may be 
doubtful. His doctrine was apparently somewhat variable. In the above- 
mentioned treatise (p. 187) he seems expressly to deny that God can have 
personality and consciousness. In his earlier work, Versuch einer Kritik aller 
Offenbarung (vol. v. pp. 40, 41), he ascribes to God blessedness, holiness, 
and omniscience. 



GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 47 

the hypothesis in question. Righteousness is a word that has 
no meaning except as it relates to personal conduct. To say- 
that an impersonal power is making for righteousness, is to say 
that a power knowing nothing about righteousness, caring noth- 
ing about it, incapable of exercising it, is constantly working to 
produce it, that is, is constantly aiming at it. Considering the 
very partial success of this power, as evinced in the moral con- 
dition of mankind, it is marvelous how men could have had 
such faith in it as Matthew Arnold assures us the ancient He- 
brews had. Physical forces may be said to be working for cer- 
tain ends — to be " making for " them — w T hen they are seen 
actually and uniformly to produce them. We infer what is 
going to be from what has been. But to assume the existence 
of a physical power which is unconsciously working to produce 
a moral effect, while that effect is confessedly not produced, or 
at best only in a very imperfect way, — this is neither good 
physics, good philosophy, nor common sense. 1 Every assump- 
tion of a moral goal towards which the world is tending, — of a 
fixed moral standard by which human conduct is to be regu- 
lated and judged, — every such assumption implies belief in a 
personal God of righteousness. Pantheists or atheists may 
hold such assumptions concerning the tendency and destiny of 
things, but they can do so only by a happy inconsistency. Con- 
sistent atheism or pantheism can find in the phenomena of con- 
sciousness and conscience nothing but a series of illusions. 
Human life becomes, on this view of things, a mass of contra- 
dictions ; the world, as a whole, has no end, no meaning ; 
human character has no intrinsic value ; human destiny is un- 
certain ; human history, with its aspirations, its griefs, its 
struggles, its hopes, and its disappointments, is nothing but a 
melancholy farce. 

1 " Is it possible to imagine a Being "which, stimulated by the influence of 
every existing condition of the cosmic course, should, with purposeless and 
blindly working activity, impart to that course the ameliorating impulses by 
which the thoroughgoing dominion of what is good is established, — a Being 
which cannot consciously indicate the place of each individual and appoint his 
"work, or distinguish what is good in a good action from what is bad in a bad 
action, or "will and realize the good "with its own living love, but yet acts as 
though it could do all this ? " — Lotze, Microcosmus, vol. ii. p. 676. 



48 



SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 



But not only is the present process of evolution, on the 
atheistic hypothesis, without any purpose. The same aimless, 
meaningless process must be infinitely repeated. For if the 
material world is eternal, its processes of evolution must have 
been eternally going on. The mind even of an evolutionist can 
hardly conceive of a material universe as existing for ages in an 
absolutely motionless, unchanging state, and then suddenly, at 
some particular moment, beginning to undergo a process of 
change. At the same time, if, as is commonly assumed, there is 
such a thing as order and progress in the process of develop- 
ment ; if there is an advance from the simple to higher and more 
complex forms of existence, — why, then, a limited time, how- 
ever long it may be supposed to be, would suffice to bring the 
development to the stage w T hich has now been reached. If the 
world has existed eternally a parte ante, then the present point 
of progress must have been reached ages ago. If there is any 
stage higher than the present one conceivable and attainable, it 
too must have been reached ages ago. For go back as far as 
we may, we have still an unlimited stretch of time in which 
the process must have been going on. We are therefore irre- 
sistibly driven to the conclusion that if this development did 
not have a beginning a limited number of years ago, so that it 
has only just been able to reach the present stage of perfection 
(and this the atheistic evolutionist must deny), then there 
must have been an infinite series of developments, it being a 
law of the evolution that at a certain stage of the evolution the 
developed world must enter on a state of regress or pass through 
a sudden cataclysm, thus returning to a state of chaos out of 
which it must then start again on its course of development 
towards order and beauty. This is avowed by some representa- 
tives of the materialistic doctrine. 1 Indeed, there is no escape 
from it, if we deny a divine creation. The farce of the universe 
thus becomes doubly, or rather infinitely, multiplied. Not only 
is there no purpose in any development at all ; not only is the 
present chapter of this process meaningless and aimless ; not 

1 E.g., J. H. Thomassen, Bibel und Natur (Leipzig, 1S69), p. 63; Ge- 
schichte und System der Xatur, p. ?0; Herbert Spencer, First Principles, 
chap, xxiii. 



GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 49 

only is it as a whole unconscious of itself ; not only do the indi- 
vidual organisms in it that have the faculty of consciousness find 
their consciousness and conscience illusive while they last, and 
destined soon to pass into non-existence ; — not only this; but this 
aimless development as a whole comes to an end, and then begins 
again and passes through the same or a similar course ; and so 
on in an infinite succession. If it is impossible to see the mean- 
ing or use of a single one of these evolutions, still more impene- 
trable is the mystery of an endless succession of them. That after 
the world, through a long process, has attained a certain stage of 
order and beauty, it should be hurled back into chaos again, and 
then Sisyphus-like work its way up into order again, only to be 
forced still again to go through the same process, each process 
being in turn but a repetition, for substance, of the preceding, and 
all together governed by no conscious power, — that this should 
be the case is an insoluble puzzle. It is mysterious enough that 
there should be one such meaningless process ; but to have it 
infinitely repeated makes the mystery infinitely dark. 

The point of all this is not so much in the implication that 
the mind requires to know what the specific meaning of the 
several phenomena of the universe is, as rather that the mind 
demands that the universe, as a ivhole, must have some mean- 
ing, that there must be some plan, some purpose, some aim, 
some goal, in it all; — in short, that there should be a reason 
for the universe of things, even though the reason should be 
only in part understood. The teleological problem of discover- 
ing particular adaptations of means to ends may be ever so 
complicated or difficult; one may be ever so much in doubt 
what this or that means ; but none the less does the mind de- 
mand that the universe as a whole shall mean something. The 
teleological argument is often criticised and pronounced incon- 
clusive, because of these difficulties or weaknesses in the par- 
ticular application of it. This criticism would have great weight, 
if the notion of a God, or the tendency to believe in a God, first 
originated in the observation of these particular teleological adap- 
tations, and if the belief itself depended on finding everywhere 
indisputable marks of intelligent contrivance. The case is, 
rather, the reverse of this. The antecedent instinctive feeling 

i 



50 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

that there must be a design, and therefore a Designer, for the 
universe in general, — this it is which prompts the search for 
particular adaptations. This is the reason why men, when the 
particular design of a thing cannot be seen, nevertheless are 
disposed to think that there is some use, some purpose, even 
when the purpose cannot be detected. Because it is naturally 
assumed that there must be a reason for the whole, therefore 
it is assumed that there is a reason for each part, however 
uncertain one may be as to what the particular reason is. 
Undoubtedly this tendency to find design in nature springs 
from the fact that in men themselves the formation of plans is 
an essential part of their rational constitution. This is some- 
times alleged as an argument against theism. It is said that 
the theistic impulse is nothing but a childlike tendency to per- 
sonify inanimate things. Particular objects, or general forces, 
or the universe as a whole, is in imagination invested with a 
personal will. But (so it is reasoned) as the maturing child 
learns, little by little, to recognize these personifications as il- 
lusions, so the developed reason of man learns to recognize that 
the tendency to assume a supreme Person as underlying the 
forces of nature is nothing but a child-like fancy having no 
solid foundation. It is sufficient to say in reply that the point 
now urged is just the fact of a tendency to assume a personal 
agency as operative in the natural world. That this tendency 
may, in particular cases, lead to an inaccurate or extravagant 
fancy is no disproof of its general soundness. It may easily be 
proved that many childish personifications are illusions ; but it 
has never been proved that there is no God. 

Similar reflections may be made concerning the moral argu- 
ment for the divine existence. The practical force of it is best 
brought out when we consider what the consequence is of adopt- 
ing atheism as the true theory. The argument does not lie in 
any formal deduction of the fact of a Divine Being made from 
the phenomena of the physical or moral world. Neither the in- 
tuitions of the moral sense nor the facts of the world's history 
furnish any demonstration of the divine existence. But a sound 
moral sense recoils from the thought of a world without a moral 
Ruler and Judge. The same impulse which, in general, inclines 



GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 51 

men to think that the world as a whole must have some end 
inclines them, in particular, to think that the moral world must 
have some good end. If it is almost impossible to conceive of 
the cosmos as passing though all its processes for nothing, as 
not being under the control of an intelligent Power who plans its 
movements and changes, it is likewise almost impossible for a 
moral being to conceive of the world of moral beings as having 
no final cause, as not controlled by an intelligent and morally 
upright Ruler. Men are not led to the positive belief in such 
a ruler by the evidences, found in nature and history, of an all- 
wise and benevolent Maker and Governor. The argument is 
altogether too inconclusive. The enormous evils and sufferings 
and wrongs with which the world is filled might rather seem to 
favor the opposite conclusion, that the Supreme Ruler, if there 
is one, is deficient in goodness and wisdom. Accordingly one of 
the principal arguments for the fact of a future life is found in 
just this moral disorder and inequality of the world as we see 
it. But the argument presupposes that there is a Moral Ruler 
who is disposed to rectify all evil. The truth is, that back of 
all attempts to find in nature evidences of the perfect holiness of 
God there is a virtual, even though unconscious, assumption, that 
there must be a Divine Being who is perfect in moral character. 
This being the assumption, men search for proof and illustra- 
tions of the assumed truth. The belief, or the tendency to be- 
lieve, leads to the argument, rather than the argument to the 
belief. 1 

In saying this we do not forget, what is frequently insisted on, 
that religion often appears to be quite independent of morality. 
In the ruder forms of it it seems to be a selfish and super- 
stitious fear of unmoral, or even of malevolent, beings, rather 
than a recognition of a Moral Ruler. It is argued, therefore, 
that ethical conceptions have nothing to do with the genesis of 
religion. But the more degraded races are not to be taken as 
illustrating the normal tendencies of humanity. Where religion 
is of this rude sort, morality is also but rudely developed. And 

1 " All arguments [for the divine existence] are merely reasons given to justify 
our faith and the particular manner in which we deem it necessary to conceive 
this highest principle." — Lotze, Grundziige der Religionsphilosophie, p. 5. 



52 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

as truly as the deities of men are apt to be regarded as charac- 
terized by traits like those of the men themselves, so truly must 
the deities be conceived as possessing ethical traits at least as 
distinct and elevated as those of their worshippers. We are, 
however, not now considering the question of the historical 
origin and original form, but rather that of the ultimate ground, 
of theistic conceptions. It matters little, so far as this question is 
concerned, whether religion first took the gross form of fetichism, 
which has gradually developed into an ethical monotheism, or 
whether, on the contrary, the lower forms of religion are de- 
generations from an original purer form. Wherever the higher 
forms are seen, there an ethical element is found. And when a 
reflective analysis contemplates the phenomena of theism, it 
cannot well avoid recognizing the moral sense as a weighty 
factor in the theistic conception. 

The atheistic hypothesis serves, therefore, to shock the mind 
into a consciousness of its own latent impulses. The clear rec- 
ognition of the logical and necessary consequences of atheism — 
the necessity it puts upon us of assuming that a world exists, 
full of manifold beauties and intelligences, yet existing through 
no intelligent cause, directed by no purpose, regulated by no 
moral controller, having in general no reason for existing and 
issuing in no worthy end, — this, as it forces upon us the sharp 
alternative which theism versus atheism presents, reveals the 
strength and validity of the theistic impulse and the real force 
of the theistic argument. It is easy to make objections to the 
theistic conception. But let one begin on the opposite side and 
try to adopt atheism, in its unadulterated form, as his theoreti- 
cal and practical belief ; and then he finds how much greater 
and more fundamental difficulties are encountered. Yet one or 
the other doctrine must be true. And men will not in the long 
run be content to embrace a doctrine which requires them to 
hold that the world in general and the human race in particular 
are the sport of a blind power, all history meaningless, and all 
life a dismal farce. 

All this simply proves a natural tendency in man to theism. 
It does not prove a direct perception of God, but only the pos- 
session of mental and moral impulses which favor a belief in 



GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 53 

the existence of one. Now, in so far as the question before us 
is, how men first came to cherish the actual belief, it is not ab- 
solutely settled by this demonstration of the tendency to the 
belief. The actual belief is a communicated one. And the 
reality of an innate tendency to the belief can be inferred, not 
from the mere fact that children accept it when communicated 
(for they might with almost equal readiness accept many untrue 
and even almost absurd things, if such were universally taught 
them), but still more from the persistence with which the the- 
istic belief maintains itself even after the objections to it have 
been urged with their greatest force ; and most of all from the 
repugnance which every sound mind and sound moral sense feels 
towards the atheistic hypothesis when it is seen in all its legiti- 
mate consequences. 

Theism is thus seen to have its roots in a tendency to assume 
the existence of a personal power (or personal powers) akin to 
human beings in intellectual and moral faculties, but superior 
to them, and exercising a control over the movements of nature 
and of human history. God is conceived as like man, but with 
a more or less complete exemption from the limitations of hu- 
manity. It is an important truth which Feuerbach distorts, 
when he says, 1 " From what a man's God is you can tell what 
the man is ; and again, from what the man is you can tell what 
his God is : the two things are identical." It is indeed not 
true that God is only the deification of man, — a poetic objecti- 
fi cation of human emotions and thoughts. But it is true that 
all genuine theism is anthropomorphic ; it does not assume 
that man makes God in his own image, but it does assume that 
God made man in His image. Unless God is conceived to be, 
like man, a being possessed of a rational intelligence and a free 
moral will, 2 — a person forming and executing purposes, — then 
there is no valid ground for pretending to be a theist. The 
ontological and cosmological arguments at the most do not bring 
us any farther than to the assumption or recognition of a Uni- 
versal Force, or an Unknown Something, which may be identical 

1 Das Wesen des Christenthums, p. 17, Leipzig, 1841. 

2 See this forcibly elaborated by President J. Bascoin, A Philosophy of 
Religion, chap, iii., New York, 1876. 



54 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

with the essential principle of a soulless material universe. 
But such a God is no God at all. 1 

"When it is objected, whether by professed theists, like Mansel, 
or professed agnostics, like Herbert Spencer, that the attributes 
of infinity and absoluteness cannot in thought be reconciled 
with a true personality, the reply is short : Who is able to as- 
sure us that God is absolute and infinite in any such sense as 
to exclude the attribute of personality ? There is no law of 
thought, or impulse of the religious nature, which compels us 
to assume any such absoluteness. Least of all has the agnostic, 
who professes to know nothing about a Divine Being, any right 
to know so much as that he is an absolute being in such a sense 
that he cannot be personal. The religious impulse leads to the 
assumption of a God who is a morally and intellectually perfect 
person. If this perfection is inconsistent with absoluteness and 
infinity, very well ; let these high-sounding abstractions be sac- 
rificed ; no harm will come to any one. The notion of a Deity 
precedes that of his absoluteness, and will remain even if the 
latter is abandoned. 2 The old ontological argument of Anselm 
presented the spectacle of an attempt to prove the existence of 
God by the very definition of God ; the modern agnostics under- 
take to find in the definition of God a proof of his non-existence, 
or at least of his unthinkableness. The one style of argumen- 
tation is as futile as the other. 

The gist of the theistic argument, then, in brief is this : The 
mind of man is instinctively inclined to think that the universe 
must have a purpose ; that, as a whole, it is for something ; 
further, that it must have a moral end, a good end ; and conse- 
quently that there must be a moral and intelligent Power pre- 
siding over it, and governing it in wisdom, righteousness, and 
love. As soon as one reflects on the matter, and whenever one 
takes in what is involved in any theory of a universe destitute 
of a personal Kuler, one recoils from the proposition that the 
complicated system of the universe is the result of the opera- 
tion of fortuitous and unintelligent physical forces. And then 

1 See Excursus III. iu the Appendix. 

2 Cf. Bascom, A Philosophy of Religion, p. 91 ; E. R. Conder, Basis of 
Faith, pp. 62 sqq. ; S. Harris, Philosophical Basis of Theism, § 55. 



GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 55 

when one observes the numberless individual marks of purpose, 
— of particular adjustments of organ to organ, of things to per- 
sons, of means to ends, 1 — this instinctive tendency to look for a 
conscious design is confirmed. And when the atheistic sug- 
gestion is made that these apparent evidences of an intelligent 
plan may be merely accidental, or that the adjustments which 
we see are only the survival, so to speak, of a chaotic and 
blundering nisus of nature, only those productions being per- 
petuated which happened to be furnished with the organs and 
environments favorable to development and reproduction, — the 
refutation of this does not need to depend on one's ability to 
prove that this was not, or could not have been, the actual fact. 
Rather one may reply : Why should I make an assumption 
which requires me to regard the universe and its history as a 
meaningless farce ? For at the best the atheistic hypothesis is 
nothing but a conjecture, even though the theistic one should 
also be pronounced to be the same. If, then, I am obliged to 
choose between the two conjectural modes of accounting for the 
fact of adaptations and contrivances, why should I not adopt 
that conjecture which harmonizes with my feeling that there must 
have been a reason for the world as a whole ? and consequently 
that a Being possessed of Reason and moral Purpose has deter- 
mined the course of things in it ? Why should I not adopt 
that conjecture which allows me to think that there is a per- 
sonal God who knows me and cares for me, — a God toward 
whom I can cherish a filial trust and love ? 2 

1 See especially Paul Janet, Final Causes (Edinburgh, 1883, 2ded., tr. by 
W. Affleck) ; J. L. Diman, The Theistic Argument ; Wm. Jackson, The Phi- 
losophy of Natural Theology (London, 1S74). 

2 Physicus, in his Candid Examination of Theism (London, 1878), after 
arguing that all the positive theistic arguments are fallacious, and that scien- 
tific thought finds no need of a personal God in order to account for the uni- 
verse and its phenomena, yet finally, after sketching an imaginary debate be- 
tween a theist and an atheist on the question of " metaphysical teleology," in 
undertaking to adjudicate between them says, "The degree of even rational 
probability may here legitimately vary with the character of the mind which 
contemplates it " (p. 95). " The grounds of belief in this case logically vary 
with the natural disposition and the subsequent training of different minds " 
(p. 99). In other words, if one is theistically inclined, he will argue in one 
way ; if atheistically inclined, in another. 



56 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

When, then, it is objected that there are many phenomena in 
nature which do not suggest a designing cause, that many things 
appear rather to be the product of a blind and unfeeling power, 
one does not need to be able to discover the occult purpose in 
order to parry the atheistic inference ; it is not even necessary 
to show that more careful research has often disclosed the pur- 
pose of what had seemed to be without it. It is sufficient to 
fall back on one's ignorance, and to assume that where there is 
so strong a presumption that the whole is the result of a plan, 
and where there are so many obvious individual instances of in- 
genious adjustment and benevolent arrangement, the compara- 
tively few inexplicable things may well be left for the present 
unexplained. A parent does many things which to a young 
child seem strange, unwise, or even cruel. But the child does 
not therefore argue that he has no parent. 1 

Finally, if it is objected that this tendency to believe in the 
existence of a God is, after all, no proof that a God does exist, 
the reply is very simple. Doubtless it is not a compulsory 
proof, else no one would ever doubt the conclusion. But if a 
strong and general tendency to believe in the objective reality 
of certain principles or existences is no evidence of such reality, 
then the foundation of all knowledge is undermined. What 
evidence have we that, whenever a change takes place in the 
world, there must have been some cause of it ? This demand for 
a cause is nothing but a strong tendency of the mind. Some 
men have undertaken to disparage the value of this tendency, 
too ; but they find it impossible to secure many followers, or 
even to be self-consistent in their skepticism. Men are so con- 
stituted as to think that what they are impelled by a strong 
natural impulse to believe to be objectively true is objectively 
true. If they can hardly help thinking that there is a material 
world existing in space, that is practically the convincing reason 
for their thinking that it does exist. If they find in them an 
insuperable tendency to conceive of material bodies as having 

1 The objections to the teleological argument derived from evolutionism 
need not be considered at length. Evolutionists themselves admit that evolu- 
tion does not do away with teleology, but rather relieves it of some of its 
difficulties. See Asa Gray, Darwiniana, 



GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 5T 

three dimensions, that is the decisive evidence that these bodies 
are so constituted. In short, when we reduce any belief, how- 
ever unavoidable or indisputable it may seem to be, to its ulti- 
mate grounds, we can get no farther than to say that we cannot 
help believing so. 

Now, the impulse to ask, What is it for ? is scarcely less im- 
perative than the impulse to ask, What is it from ? The various 
tendencies of the soul which lead to the conception of a su- 
preme personal Being are just as legitimate and trustworthy as 
any others. If they are discredited as not demonstrating the 
objective reality of the God who is believed in, then a similar 
treatment applied to all fundamental and intuitive beliefs re- 
duces us to pure Pyrrhonism or Nihilism. 

Of course it cannot be contended that the knowledge of God 
is precisely analogous to that of the external world. The sim- 
ple fact that men's conceptions and impressions of divinity are 
and have been so exceedingly diverse and almost contradictory, 
whereas they are substantially in agreement as to the facts and 
appearances of the objects of sense, shows that there is not the 
same kind and degree of force in the two classes of impelling 
tendencies. The cognition of a purely spiritual being, either 
because of the limitations of our present mode of existence, or 
because sin has blinded our spiritual vision, cannot be called 
direct knowledge in the same sense as the cognition of material 
objects is. Left to themselves, men might have agreed that 
there is probably a supreme personal Power. They might have 
had a common longing and hope for a clear manifestation of the 
fact of such a God. But there would still have been the pos- 
sibility that the world was swayed by an unconscious, though 
all-pervading, force. There would still have been the possibil- 
ity, however repellent the thought, that the universe both of 
inanimate and rational beings was existing for no purpose. 
Persons who had come to the knowledge of other persons only 
through direct perception and intercourse could not be sure of the 
existence of a Divine person, if he made no palpable and per- 
sonal manifestation of himself. Still less could they have come 
to a certain knowledge of the particular attributes of this Being. 
Of course, in process of time the conjecture concerning a Supreme 



58 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

Being might have taken the form of a belief, and the belief 
again might have assumed the aspect of an assured knowledge. 
Theism thus transmitted would have been implicitly accepted 
by each new generation on the mere testimony of the preceding. 
But in this case the ground of certainty in the belief would 
have been merely the testimony of others. Monotheism, poly- 
theism, fetichism, would all rest on the same foundation, mono- 
theism having only the advantage of being most in accordance 
with enlightened reason. As soon as the belief is questioned, it 
is seen that the mere fact of a traditional handing down of the 
belief is of itself no strict proof of its correctness. The testi- 
mony is found to be valuable only so far as it tallies with and 
confirms the general impulses and tendencies of men. 

But in another form testimony plays a very important part 
in the confirmation of theism. And here we come to the second 
factor in the basis of theistic belief ; namely, — 

II. Eevelation as a ground of assured belief in a personal 
God and of a definite knowledge of him. This is testimony, as 
it were, at first hand. It is like the personal appearance of a 
man about whom we have heretofore known only by conjecture 
or hearsay. It is evidence in addition to that which is found in 
those innate tendencies which incline men to adopt theistic 
conceptions. When the Deity is supposed to have manifested 
himself in some palpable way, even though only for a single 
time, the fact of this manifestation is handed down and be- 
comes the ground of the assured confidence with which the the- 
istic belief is held. 

Of course, belief in a revelation must presuppose this inclina- 
tion to belief in the existence of a Divine Being. Absolute, 
stolid atheism, — a positive disbelief in the existence of any- 
thing superhuman or supernatural, — if this were the natural 
and ordinary attitude of the human mind, could hardly be 
overcome by any special revelation. Such atheism would neces- 
sarily assume a skeptical attitude towards any apparent or pre- 
tended manifestation of a God. Even if the disbelief were in 
a particular instance overcome by some remarkable demonstra- 
tion, it would afterwards return again, if such disbelief were 
indeed the natural attitude of the human mind. The alleged 



GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. ' 59 

revelation would soon be repudiated as an illusion. The origi- 
nal and natural unbelief would re-assert itself, and continue to 
be the dominant sentiment of men. But given a general dispo- 
sition to believe in a Divine Being ; given a general desire to be 
assured of the reality and of the character of a God already 
believed in, or at least conjectured, — then a revelation will be 
effective and lasting in its tendency to establish men in the 
sure conviction that there is indeed a God. The revelation, 
when accepted as such, furnishes a ground of certainty concern- 
ing the Divine Being which exceeds, and in a sense supersedes, 
the belief which may have existed before. 

All this holds true quite irrespective of the question whether 
any particular alleged revelation is a genuine one or not. The 
point here to be insisted on is that an antecedent tendency to 
believe the world to be under the control of a personal God 
prepares one to desire and expect a revelation of such a God. 
If that desire and expectation are or seem to be realized, the 
revelation is in the very nature of the case a clearer and more 
positive source of knowledge than the antecedent theistic im- 
pulse could be. Otherwise there could be no ground for the 
desire itself. Take the case of the ordinary Christian. He 
finds himself in a community filled, and even in a sense consti- 
tuted, by Christian doctrines which have been handed down, and 
which form the source and substance of the religious thinking 
of the Christian world. The fact and the character of a per- 
sonal God, together with the account of what he has done in 
order to save mankind, are an essential part of the Christian 
body of doctrine. All this comes to each individual as the con- 
tents of the Christian system, before he has begun to think inde- 
pendently, before either doubt springs up or he becomes clearly 
conscious of any innate tendencies to believe in a Divine Being. 
The simple fact is that the child in a Christian community is 
told by his elders about the fact and the character of God as 
soon as he is able to take in the instruction. If we ask how 
the instructors came by their own impressions and convictions, 
the same answer must be given ; and so the chain reaches back 
to the beginning of the Christian Church. The first disciples 
of Christ received from him positive communications concern- 



60 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

ing God, his character, and his purposes respecting men. " Show 
us the Father, and it sufficeth us," was their request ; and his life 
and words gave the answer. Whatever they may have believed 
and hoped before, Christ's revelations were to them more authori- 
tative and conclusive than any previous instructions or convic- 
tions. That his teachings were largely in harmony with their 
previous convictions and opinions must have helped to win their 
confidence in him as an inspired teacher. But when the confi- 
dence was created, and they could say with assurance, " We 
know that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God ; " when 
especially their confidence was confirmed and made invincible 
by his resurrection, — they found in him the ultimate and infalli- 
ble source of religious truth. Though they may before have had 
no doubts about the fact of a Divine Being, yet now, if doubts 
had arisen, they would have been at once overcome by this 
same confidence in the infallible authority of their Master. 
Because he believed in God, because he claimed to have come 
from God and to have revealed the gracious purposes of God, 
therefore they could not but believe in God. They trusted his 
veracity and his competency so implicitly that all previous tra- 
ditional beliefs were worthless, as compared with their assurance 
that he spoke the truth, and that he had made known to them 
the Father. When they accepted Jesus as a divinely inspired 
Revealer of God, they had a new ground of certainty. Their 
previous beliefs, themselves resting on the tradition of an earlier 
revelation, were now strengthened. The words of one who pro- 
fessed to come directly from God, and whose whole character 
and conduct confirmed his claims, introduced them into a new 
region of religious assurance. Whatever innate tendencies there 
may have been to believe in a God, whatever confirmation this 
tendency may have received from reflection and tradition, yet 
the ground of calm and firm assurance was now found in the 
self-evidencing character and claims of the great Prophet who 
brought to light the things heretofore dimly known or blindly 
accepted. 

And what was true of the original disciples holds true, sub- 
stantially, of Christendom in general. Christians do not, indeed, 
now have the same immediateness of personal acquaintance 



GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 61 

with Jesus which those disciples had ; but they have what in 
some respects more than compensates for the want of it : they 
have the evidence of Christian history as a confirmation of 
Jesus' claims. Christianity now, as then, rests on the per- 
sonal authority of its Founder. Christians trace to him not only 
their religious hopes, but also their religious knowledge. What 
the Christian thinks or knows about God he receives through 
the medium of the Christian revelation. In spite of himself, 
by virtue of a training which began in his earliest years, he has 
become imbued with Christian principles and Christian beliefs, 
derived from the revelation brought into the world by Jesus 
Christ, and accepted because he is regarded as authoritative and 
true. And so it is not an extravagant thing, — nay, it is a most 
reasonable and obvious thing, — to say that if a Christian finds 
himself troubled by atheistic doubts, he may properly dispel 
them by reflecting that, if such doubts have any validity, then 
Jesus ought still more to have had them, whereas, on the con- 
trary, he had none. He professed to know the Father, to come 
from him, and to be in constant fellowship with him. If athe- 
ism is true, then Christ was not only no true prophet, but either 
a gross impostor or at the best a misguided enthusiast. In 
case, now, a Christian is beset with speculative doubts about 
God, it is legitimate for him to quell them by the reflection 
that Christ had no doubts, and that Christ's testimony on this 
point is sufficient to outweigh all the difficulties which specula- 
tion can possibly raise. Indeed, so long as one remains a 
Christian, no other course can be taken. It would be simply 
absurd to profess to have faith in Christ, if in the very center of 
his religious life and teaching he w T as the victim of a delusion, 
or else was guilty of a base deception. If one has (as every 
real Christian must have) implicit faith in the absolute trust- 
worthiness of Christ as a religious guide, then his testimony 
concerning God is more conclusive than all the arguments of 
metaphysicians or than all possible reflections of one's own. 
It is clear, then, that when the question is raised, what it is that 
gives assurance to a Christian respecting divine things, as over 
against the uncertainties and doubts which may arise, the answer 
must be that it is his faith in the Christian revelation itself. 



62 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

That God is a living reality is made certain to the Christian 
mind by the fact that God has manifested himself in Christ to 
the world. 

And what is true of those who accept the Christian revela- 
tion as genuine is also true of those who are adherents of other 
religions. They believe what they believe, not simply on the 
ground of innate intuitions or independent reflection, but on 
the ground of a supposed revelation in which the Deity has 
disclosed himself. It is not necessary to substantiate this 
statement by a detailed examination of religious history. The 
fact is admitted by all. Wherever a religious faith is vig- 
orous and positive, it rests on a real or supposed revelation. 
When faith in the genuineness of the revelation is undermined, 
the religion itself loses its vitality. When the Greek and 
Eoman mythologies began to be recognized as fables, general 
religious skepticism came in ; theism instead of being a firm faith 
became a matter of speculation. Cicero found occasion to write 
a treatise to prove the reality of a Deity. And so generally, 
when faith in a supernatural revelation is lost, faith in a per- 
sonal Deity is either lost or becomes doubtful and lifeless. 
Deism may live for a time on the strength of a theism nursed 
by faith in the supernatural ; but by degrees it will degenerate 
into pantheism or pure atheism. 1 A God whose existence and 
character are only inferred from the phenomena of the universe, 
with its mixture of good and bad, beauty and ugliness, pleasure 
and suffering, with its doubtful progress towards the better, and 
with no certain message from its author to tell men whether he 
cares for them or even has a personal consciousness of their 
existence, — such a God cannot long retain the clear and strong 
faith of his creatures. Eeligion, in order to have any vitality, 
'must involve a belief, at least, that the object of worship has 
made himself definitely known. The speculations and con- 
jectures which may grow out of the theistic tendency of men's 
minds are too vague and discordant to produce a common and 
assured belief. There cannot be a community holding one 
definite conviction concerning a Divine Being and united in a 
common worship of him, unless the Deity is supposed somehow 
1 Cf. Luthardt, Apologie des Christenthums, vol. iv. 



GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 63 

to have authentically and authoritatively revealed himself. 
Such a supposition will develop itself, with or without good 
grounds. If a Buddha or Confucius merely by his own in- 
sight detects the errors of his fellows and teaches a new or a 
reformed religion, and if his teachings are accepted and become 
the foundation of a new religious community, he will come to 
be regarded (whether himself claiming it or not) as specially 
inspired, and his teachings as therefore having a higher author- 
ity than that of mere human opinion. 

Of course it may be argued that, inasmuch as there are many 
pretended revelations, not all of which can be genuine, revela- 
tions in general are discredited by this multiplicity and incon- 
sistency, and that therefore, although assurance of faith in a 
divine being may come from assumed revelations, yet such 
revelations are proved by their very diversity to be spurious ; 
so that the whole superstructure resting on them is deprived of 
its security. Be that as it may. Our present point is not 
that the fact or the character of God is disclosed by any or 
every alleged revelation ; but rather that definite and confident 
belief in such a revelation is essential to a lively, and especially 
to a common, belief in a God. If there is a natural tendency in 
men to believe in a Divine Being, none the less certain is it 
that there is a natural tendency in men to desire an authori- 
tative communication from the Deity — some special mani- 
festation which shall make men feel acquainted with him. 
Whether any such revelation has been made ; which of all the 
alleged revelations, if any, can substantiate itself as the genu- 
ine one, — these are entirely different, though very important, 
questions. But it is of no little account to emphasize this ten- 
dency to desire an authentic revelation. If the innate tendency 
to believe in a God is to be accepted as one reason, at least, for 
the truth of theism, then equally the natural desire to receive 
a special communication from God may be taken as furnish- 
ing a presumption, at least, that one has been made. If there 
are intrinsic reasons for believing that there is a personal God 
presiding over the universe, there is also reason for believing 
that he must desire to make himself clearly known to his 
personal creatures. If it were certain that no such revelation 



64 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

had ever been made, this absence of a revelation would throw 
doubt on the trustworthiness of the theistic impulse itself. 

But here there presents itself again the troublesome fact of a 
multiplicity of alleged revelations, and of revelations so diverse 
from one another that not all of them can have been genuine. 
What shall be said, now, respecting this fact ? Three possible 
courses can be taken with reference to it : (1) It can be con- 
cluded that all pretended revelations are spurious, and that all re- 
ligion is natural religion, or even pure delusion. (2) It may be 
argued that some one or more of the revelations may be genuine, 
the others being spurious. (3) It may be argued that all the 
alleged revelations, though conflicting with one another, are 
derived, in a more or less corrupt form, from one primeval reve- 
lation. The first course is excluded by what has already been 
said. Eespecting the other two it may be said that a theist 
can consistently adopt either of them. The genuineness of a 
particular revelation, like the Christian, does not prove or dis- 
prove the genuineness of another one made at a time so remote 
that no conclusive evidence concerning it is available. And 
just because the data for settling the problem concerning a 
primeval revelation are so scant or wanting altogether, it may 
seem to be an idle occupation to discuss it at all. But, on the 
other hand, every discussion about the actuality of a revela- 
tion inevitably runs into the question about its possibility and 
probability; and this at once leads to the question whether 
the race has ever been without it. To many minds the credi- 
bility of any alleged historical revelation is invalidated, if it is 
assumed that during the whole previous history of mankind no 
knowledge of God or of his will was had except what had 
come from men's unaided conjectures. The feeling is this : A 
special or supernatural revelation is credible only in case the 
need of it is obvious; but if there was a need of one some 
thousands of years after men began to live on the earth, there 
must likewise have been a need of it from the outset. Either 
this presumption in favor of a primitive revelation must be 
rebutted, or the probability of such a revelation must be 
assumed. 



THE QUESTION OF A PKIMEVAL REVELATION. 65 



CHAPTER III 

THE QUESTION OF A PRIMEVAL REVELATION. 

THE preceding discussion has made it clear that whatever 
may be true as to this question, we cannot assume that 
a special revelation was the original source of a theistic tendency 
of mind. A predisposition to believe in a God, and a desire to 
experience some manifestation of his presence and character, 
must be assumed as implanted in the primeval man. If it 
should be held that man, without any native tendency to be- 
lieve in a God, had the notion of one communicated to him by 
a special revelation, without which revelation he would neces- 
sarily have been and remained a pure atheist, such a view 
would indeed merit little attention ; for against an atheistic 
bent of mind innate in the human race no special revelation 
could for any length of time maintain its influence. Indeed, it 
is not clear how an ingrained atheistic mind could be made to 
believe in a God at all. 

Yet some writers seem, in their treatment of this subject, to 
assume that the theory of a primeval revelation implies just 
this doctrine of innate atheism as the aboriginal condition of 
mankind. Thus Dr. A. M. Fairbairn, in his discussion of the 
matter, apparently considers the theory of a primeval revelation 
as designed only to explain how the first idea of God arose in 
the human mind. He says, and says truly, " Revelation may 
satisfy or rectify, but cannot create, a religious capacity or in- 
stinct." But Dr. Fairbairn's argument goes further than to de- 
fend this proposition. A primitive revelation, he says, is "a 
mere assumption, incapable of proof — capable of most positive 
disproof." 1 What, now, is the argument? This is it: 2 "If 

1 Studies in the Philosophy of Religion and History, pp. 21 sq., American 
edition (pp. 13 sq. in the English). 

2 Ibid., p. 22. 

5 



66 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

there was a primitive revelation, it must have been — unless 
the word is used in an unusual and misleading sense — either 
written or oral. If written, it could hardly be primitive, for 
writing is an art, a not very early acquired art, and one which 
does not allow documents of exceptional value to be lost. If it 
was oral, then either the language for it was created, or it was 
no more primitive than the written. Then an oral revelation 
becomes a tradition, and a tradition requires either a special 
caste for its transmission, becomes therefore its property, or 
must be subjected to multitudinous changes and additions from 
the popular imagination, — becomes, therefore, a wild commin- 
gling of broken and bewildering lights. But neither as docu- 
mentary nor traditional can any traces of a primitive revelation 
be discovered ; and to assume it is only to burden the question 
with a thesis which renders a critical and philosophical discus- 
sion alike impossible." 1 

1 Similarly Emile Burnouf (Science of Religions, p. 47, London, 1888. In 
the original : La Science des Religions, Paris, 1872, p. 82. The translation is 
simply execrable) says, " There is not a scholar to-day who considers this 
opinion as anything but erroneous. It is contradicted by the knowledge of 
texts, which disclose no point of contact between the most ancient Hebrew 
books and the Veda ; also by the comparative study of languages, which sepa- 
rates in their origins and in their systems the Semitic idioms from the Aryan 
idioms ; . . . lastly, by this simple reflexion ruling all facts, that, when hu- 
manity is in possession of a true principle, there is no example of its ever 
being allowed to perish." This last reason is a curiosity of logic. The propo- 
sition is of course true, — true, even to the extent of being absurd, if we 
may venture the paradox, — provided he refers to known examples of the loss 
of a true principle; for if such an example were known, the principle would not 
be lost. But if there were really instances of such a loss, then of course the 
fact of the loss must be unknown ; and to try to disprove the fact of the loss 
by the fact of our ignorance of the loss hardly deserves the dignity of being 
called a fallacy ; it is rather an instance of Hibernianism. 

Max Muller (Introduction to the Science of Religion, Lect. I. p. 30) 
says : " The theory that there was a primeval preternatural revelation granted 
to the fathers of the human race . . . would find but few supporters at pres- 
ent ; no more, in fact, than the theory that there was in the beginning one 
complete language, broken up in later times into the numberless languages of 
the world." This comparison cannot be meant to imply that there was not 
one primeval language ; for in his Lectures on the Science of Language (vol. 
i. pp. 447, 448) he says : "We can understand not only the origin of language, 



THE QUESTION OF A PRIMEVAL REVELATION. 67 

This is surely a very summary way of despatching the theory. 
That the primitive revelation, if there was one, was not a writ- 
ten one, is of course at once to be granted. But why it could 
not have been oral, or in some other way palpable to the human 
senses and apprehension, is not so clear. In that case, we are 
told, the language for the revelation must have had to be cre- 
ated. Just how much is meant by this is not obvious. It 
might mean that human language, as a whole, would have had 
to be created in and with the divine act of revelation ; or it 
might mean that, in addition to a language already existent, a 
new vocabulary would have had to be created as a medium of 
the new truth to be communicated. But neither supposition is 
a necessary one. The problem concerning the origin of lan- 
guage is one which scientific investigation will hardly be able 

but likewise the necessary breaking up of one language into many ; and we per- 
ceive that no amount of variety in the material or formal elements of speech is 
incompatible with the admission of one common source." Unless these two 
extracts are to be understood as in direct contradiction of each other, the 
first must be read with an emphasis on the word " complete." The original 
language may, and indeed must, have been incomplete as compared with later 
ones. But still it is hard to see how the comparison of the theory of one original 
language with that of a primeval revelation helps to fortify his denial of such a 
revelation. If the various languages, now so different from one another, may be 
modifications of one common language, the great variety of the religions of the 
world cannot be adduced as a proof that they have not been derived from 
a common source. The corruption and development, such as Miiller describes 
in his Hibbert Lectures, may have been hi a sense natural, the outgrowth of 
the particular tendencies and circumstances of each particular race; but no 
amount of investigation of such development can ever go to the length of dis- 
proving the hypothesis of a primeval revelation. 

A similar comment may be made on Professor Briggs's remark {Messianic 
Prophecy, p. 4) : " It was once the fashion to explain the good features of 
other religions as relics of the primitive divine revelations recorded in the 
Bible, or as derived in some mysterious way from the Hebrews. But this fash- 
ion has passed away with the unscientific age." Yet Professor Briggs himself 
believes in a primeval revelation; for (p. 71) he says : " Messianic prophecy 
begins with the dawn of human history." After the fall of man, he says 
(p. 73), " God appears in theophany as Judge and as Redeemer." If now 
there was really a primitive revelation, what has become of it ? Considering 
the tendency of men to hand down important truths and beliefs, which is most 
"scientific," — to suppose that revelation to have been quite lost; or to have 
been propagated, diversified, and corrupted ? 



68 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

ever to solve. Philologists now generally reject, or even ridicule, 
the theory of a supernatural communication of language to the 
first man or men. But they are unable to agree among them- 
selves in what other way language did first have its origin. 
The truth is, the problem relates to an altogether unique con- 
dition of things, for which there is now no analogy. Language 
is now a developed fact ; and every new generation receives it 
from the preceding generation. There is no instance of the 
spontaneous invention of a new language on the part of infants 
who fail to be taught an already existent one. And when we 
transfer ourselves in imagination to the time when there was 
as yet no language in use, we are obliged to deal wholly in con- 
jectures, if we attempt to determine by what process the first 
language came into being. It certainly cannot be proved that 
its origin was not supernatural. If the first man was, as he is 
assumed to have been by the scientists, a mere infant in knowl- 
edge and thought, then the analogy of present experience would 
favor the supposition that he received language as a communi- 
cation from without. The capacity to speak must have been in 
him. He must have had sensations, perceptions, and thoughts 
which were capable of being expressed in language. He must, 
in short, have had the same fitness for being taught the use of 
language which infants now have. Since he was without any 
human companions who could teach him, the nearest possible 
approach to the present condition of things would have been a 
divine impartation of language. 

But it is quite immaterial to our present point whether lan- 
guage was a supernatural gift or a natural growth. Let it be 
assumed that it was the latter. It is still not obvious wherein 
the point of Dr. Fairbairn's reasoning lies. If the language of 
the revelation was oral, he says, it was (unless specially created) 
no more primitive than the written. This assertion is simply un- 
intelligible. Suppose writing to have been invented two thou- 
sand years after man had existed and used a spoken language. 
Suppose, further, an oral revelation to have been made as soon 
as man had mental capacity and language enough to compre- 
hend it. What can be meant by the statement that such a 
revelation would not have been more primitive than the written 



THE QUESTION OF A PRIMEVAL REVELATION. 69 

language ? Both parts of Dr. Fairbairn's statement are palpa- 
bly baseless. The supposed revelation would not require the 
creation of a language; and it would be more primitive than 
writing. Whatever the fact may be as to a primitive revelation, 
this argument certainly will hardly be sufficient to overthrow 
the hypothesis. 1 

Having in this easy way despatched the so-called supernatural 
theory, together with the so-called natural theories (those which 
assume religion to have originated from dreams, delusions, etc.), 
Dr. Fairbairn proceeds to solve the problem by the " historical 
method." This consists in inferences drawn from a historical 
examination of Indo-European names of the Deity. The conclu- 
sion is that to our early ancestors the sky was a deity called 
Dyaus, or Deva. So much may be true enough. But when Dr. 
Fairbairn goes further, and undertakes to explain how men came 
to deify the heavens, he says that there were two objective and 
two subjective factors in the genesis of the idea of Deity. The 
objective were the heaven and its action relative to the earth. 
The subjective were conscience and imagination. Conscience 
pointed to a being to whom obligation was due, and imagination 
discovered that being in the " bright brooding Heaven." And 
so it is concluded that " the idea of God was thus given in the 
very same act as the idea of self ; neither could be said to pre- 
cede the other." And so this " historical method " ends with 
coming, after all, to the " natural " method. The historical part 
of the investigation only furnishes us some interesting facts 
concerning the names of the Deity, and makes it probable that 
the early Aryan religion was purer and more monotheistic than 
the later. But when the question is attacked, how men first 
came to the conception of the Deity, resort is had to pure con- 
jecture and assumption. 2 The human conscience and imagina- 
tion are alleged to be the determining forces which produced 

1 See Excursus IV. 

2 If any confirmation of this were needed, it might be found in the fact that 
other men, pursuing the same course of investigation, come to an entirely dif- 
ferent result. Thus Burnouf {Science of Religions, p. 243 ; in the French 
original p. 407) finds the origin of religion in the search after the causes of the 
phenomena of every-day life, and makes no account of morality. 



70 SUPERNATUKAL REVELATION. 

the mighty conception. Here no historical or philological in- 
quiry leads the way. The inquirer simply falls back on human 
nature as he finds it now, and guesses that the first thought of 
God must have come from the operation of conscience and 
imagination in men who had only their own souls, the brooding 
heavens, and the surrounding earth, from which to derive their 
conceptions. This conjecture may be, and doubtless is, much 
nearer the truth than the one which derives religious ideas from 
dreams or deceptions ; but it is none the less a conjecture, hav- 
ing no necessary connection with the historical discussion, — 
indeed, having no special connection with that at all ; for mani- 
festly the conjecture must be as applicable to Shemitic as to 
Aryan races, though the philological investigation applies only to 
the latter. Moreover, Dr. Fairbairn reasons as if the Aryans 
were a strictly primitive race, and came to their religion absolutely 
without ancestral help. But surely it cannot be meant that 
the Aryan language was the language of the primeval man, and 
that we may infer from its features precisely how the first man 
got his religious notions. The Aryans, so far as we can trace 
them, had their ancestors, and those ancestors doubtless had a 
religion, and doubtless communicated their religion to their 
descendants. The main question, therefore, is hardly touched 
by any such historical and philological investigation. It may 
be said, indeed, that no one can prove the reality of a primeval 
revelation, since there are no historical documents that reach 
back far enough to establish such a theory. But equally true 
is it that no one can disprove the theory, — least of all by an 
argument that concerns only one branch of the human race and 
a period later than the origin of the race itself. 

On any theory, the problem concerning the first origin of 
religious ideas is a peculiar one, materially different from the 
question how such ideas now originate or propagate themselves. 
Whether we regard man as developed out of bestial forms or as 
suddenly created with angelic capacities fresh from the hand of 
God ; whether we think that all human acquirements were the 
result of a long process of experiment, or came directly by mi- 
raculous impartation, — make whatever suppositions we may, 
the one certain thing is that the original man, in respect to 



THE QUESTION OF A PRIMEVAL REVELATION. 71 

intellectual, moral, and religious development, existed under 
unique conditions. 1 Present analogies cannot be applied to him. 
For the present fact is that all the culture of the new-born 
child is mediated by parents and elders. All knowledge of an 
abstract or scientific sort is communicated. Even the child's 
direct perception of the external world is confused and unin- 
telligent, till it is directed and classified by those whom he lives 
with. Language is an existent and universal possession. The 
child learns it almost as soon as he can learn anything, but 
he learns it from others. It is the medium through which his 
teachers communicate knowledge to him, and by which he learns 
to express his own thoughts and feelings. 

But all must have been radically different with the first man. 
Whatever theory of his origin one may adopt, it must belong to 
the theory that this man could not have got his training from 
human intelligent parents. It must be assumed that no heredi- 
tary influence could have made him naturally inclined to think 
about religious things. It must, in short, be assumed that what 
is now most influential and decisive in determining the first 
thoughts concerning God was then totally wanting. The first 
man, whether he is looked upon as semi-bestial or as angelic, as 
an infant or as an adult, had no human help, such as all human 
beings have now, in coming to his self-consciousness and to his 
religious ideas. 

The absence of language as a means of communication and 
of self-culture in independent reflection, makes the condition of 
the first man radically peculiar. Let language have been ac- 
quired however it may, at any rate the first man, without lan- 
guage, stood in an altogether anomalous position. The most 
exact analogy would be that of an infant born now and some- 
how kept alive, but without any intercourse with other human 
beings. But now, whenever anything like this occurs, the per- 
son, instead of developing an independent culture, tends more 
and more to lose the traces of humanity entirely. And this is, 
after all, not a really analogous case ; for on the one hand an 
infant now has at least certain hereditary gifts and tendencies 

1 See this point forcibly presented in the Duke of Argyll's Unity o/Xature> 
pp. 523 sqq, 



72 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

which the first man cannot have had, while on the other hand 
the first man cannot have been a mere infant. 

The evolutionist may seem to relieve the problem of some of 
its difficulties, when he assumes a gradual growth of animal in- 
telligence in some one of the higher brute races, until at last by 
slow gradations articulate language took the place of inarticulate 
sounds, and step by step more general and abstract conceptions 
were developed, and finally the idea of God grew out of the su- 
perstitious fancies of fetichism, animism, etc. But though this 
theory makes the notion of a first man somewhat shadowy, inas- 
much as it obliterates all sharp distinctions between brutes and 
men, and though a slow growth of language and of religious 
conceptions may not a priori be pronounced impossible, 1 yet 
even then we have to assume a condition of things for which 
there is no present analogy. The first thought of a God, at 
whatever point we may fix it, must have been the highest and 
entirely independent thought of the most advanced adult ; and 
this is a vastly different thing from the thought of God commu- 
nicated to the infant mind by elders who have generations of 
theists behind them from whom their belief has been received. 

With the origin of the idea of God must have been associated 
words for the expression of it. And here arises a new anomaly. 
Now the words are already in existence, possessing a signifi- 
cance which long usage has stamped upon them. But then the 
words had to be invented. Whether simultaneously with every 
new conception, or closely following it, the language had to be 
created. By what law of association, by what peculiar impulse 
of the soul, we cannot tell. The present change and develop- 
ment of language always depends on the language already in 
existence. An absolutely new word cannot be originated ; or if 
it can be, it can come into use only by mutual agreement on the 
part of those who can already communicate ideas by means of 
a common language. But when there was as yet no language, 
and an entirely new one was to be invented, the whole relation 
of things was radically different. It does not relieve us of the 

1 Yet the transition from speechlessness to speech is still acknowledged by 
evolutionists themselves to be an unsolved problem. Vide DuBois-Reymond, 
Die sieben Weltrathsel, p. 83 (Leipzig, 1882). 



THE QUESTION OF A PRIMEVAL REVELATION. 73 

anomaly to assume an extremely slow development of intelli- 
gence and language ; the anomaly would rather be only intensi- 
fied. For now the most marvellous fact in regard to language 
is not the slowness, but the rapidity, with which with his un- 
developed faculties a child can learn a language. Even if Sir 
John Lubbock's prospective effort to educate dogs into men 
should be successful, the case would still not be analogous to 
the original assumed transformation of apes into men. Tor that 
original transformation is supposed to have come about of itself 
without any education from a higher source, whereas the poor 
dogs, though they have lived for centuries in close association 
with men, remain dogs still ; and their transformation into men 
is looked for only as the result of a very specially diligent and 
patient training. 

Take whatever view we may, then, there was something al- 
together unique in the mental history and experience of the 
being that could first properly be styled a man, when he first 
had what can properly be styled a conception of God. 

But we are here more particularly concerned with the problem 
as it shapes itself to the mind of a strict theist. The atheistic 
evolutionist, whatever plausibility he may succeed in weaving 
around his hypothesis, can of course contribute nothing to the 
solution of the question, what relation the living God assumed 
towards the first being who was able to lift his thoughts upwards 
to his Maker. Theists, especially Christian theists, can hardly 
content themselves with the purely evolutionary view of the ori- 
gin of man. Even though some concessions may be made as to 
man's physical structure ; even though the extremest Darwinian 
theory of his physical connection with the lower animals should 
be adopted ; still, whoever believes that man, as a religious being, 
holds vital relations to God, will find it difficult or impossible 
to believe that the human race, on its intellectual and spiritual 
side, came into existence by a gradual and imperceptible pro- 
cess, — the brute growing into a man, and theism being the 
slow development of blind instinctive cravings and superstitious 
conceits into a purer and loftier notion of a Divine Being for 
whose service he was made, while yet that same Divine Being 
let the process take its slow course, and never once manifested 



74 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

himself to the struggling and groping heart, never interfered to 
help his creatures into clearer views, or to bring to bear upon 
their development the knowledge that he cherished towards 
them any conscious regard or paternal love. The influence of 
the current drift towards evolution may be strong; and many 
theists may naturally be inclined to concede as much as possi- 
ble to the theory. But at some point they must break away 
from the all-embracing circle. The theory in its extreme form 
has no room for any special interposition. Mere scientific ob- 
servation and inference cannot find room for any such disturb- 
ing or accelerating force from without. And shutting out 
divine interference at one point, it equally shuts it out in all. 
Supernatural revelation becomes an abnormity, or even an im- 
possibility. Personal acquaintance with God, even if his exist- 
ence is assumed, becomes also impossible. Men may speculate 
about God. They may perhaps be right in believing that some 
higher Power exists, distinct from the visible universe ; but the 
speculation is only speculation, and can never amount to knowl- 
edge, even theoretical knowledge, still less to a practical and 
personal knowledge, of the Absolute One. 

But a theist, especially a Christian theist, must approach the 
question about the origin of the theistic belief with a different 
conception of things. He cannot but hold that the creation of 
man was a marked event in the history of the universe. He 
cannot be content to assume that the human race was evolved 
by imperceptible growth from an unhuman state, and that all 
the intellectual and spiritual experiences of man are only animal 
instincts in a higher state of development. To him man must 
be a very distinctly defined being ; and human history must 
have had a very definite beginning. To him, therefore, still 
more than to the atheistic evolutionist, the origin of the notion of 
a God must have been a unique thing, not to be explained by 
any present analogy. He must reject the theories which make 
religion the product of superstitious fears and delusions, not 
only because these presuppose that theism is without any 
solid basis, but because they are inadequate to account for the 
persistence of theistic beliefs. But, if he speculate at all, he 
must have some theory as to how the notion of a God origi- 



THE QUESTION OF A PRIMEVAL REVELATION. 75 

nated. And he must also recognize, even more than the athe- 
ist, the essential uniqueness of the conditions under which the 
theistic idea first arose. 

Let us now come back to the above-mentioned theory which, 
under the name of historic method, explains the beginning of 
theism by asserting that conscience and imagination led man to 
ascribe deity to the sky above him. The extreme evolutionist 
would at once say that we need first to define conscience and 
inquire concerning its origin. He would find it to be only the 
developed form of bestial instincts, — a development not yet 
finished ; so that the voice of conscience is an ever-changing 
one, and never a mirror of any objective immutable truth. To 
him, therefore, conscience in the first man (even if he can 
determine what degree of animal development to dignify with 
the name of manhood) would be only another term for the 
mental fancies and illusions which his own theory posits as the 
source of the theistic conception. But Dr. Fairbairn, as a 
Christian theist, who finds in the action of conscience the 
source of theism, must assume a well-developed and distinctly 
defined conscience. He must attribute to the conscience of the 
aboriginal man a certain clearness and authority of utterance. 
He must have in mind a conscience essentially such as men 
have now; and he must have some theory as to its origin. 
Now, unless he explains it, as he hardly will, in the evolutionary 
way, he must assume either that the conscience, as a full-orbed 
faculty, was brought suddenly into being by a divine fiat, or 
else that it was divinely implanted as a germ, which was then 
gradually developed into a real conscience. But in either case 
we have an anomalous state of things. There is now no such 
thing ever known as a complete conscience coming suddenly 
into existence. 

Conscience, as we know it, is always a product of training. 
The new-born child appears to be substantially as devoid of 
moral sense as the new-born lion. It is only by a gradual pro- 
cess that a well-defined faculty of moral judgment manifests 
itself. If, now, the new-created man was at the very outset pos- 
sessed of a perfectly constituted conscience, it could only have 
been by virtue of an immediate creation and impartation. If 



76 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

without any experience of the relations of man to man he was 
able nevertheless to understand the requirements of the moral 
law, such a power could have come from nothing less than a 
supernatural act. It is at the best hard to conceive such an 
impartation; but whoever can conceive it ought to find no 
greater difficulty in conceiving the first man as supernaturally 
instructed concerning the Divine Being. 

But let us take the other part of the alternative, and suppose 
the first conscience to have been gradually developed out of a 
germinal one. We still find ourselves dealing with an entirely 
anomalous case. For the primeval man had no parental or 
other human instructors such as all children now have, and 
without whom the latent faculties of the child are never devel- 
oped into distinct and normal activity. If the first man's con- 
science required external personal training to make it a normal 
conscience, then, since there was no human teacher, we must 
assume that God in some peculiar way manifested himself and 
acted the part of instructor. But this again introduces super- 
naturalism in its sharpest form. Dr. Fairbairn could of course 
not accept such a view; for it makes God reveal himself to 
man before the conscience is sufficiently developed to suggest 
the notion of a God, whereas his theory is that the notion can 
have come only as the suggestion of a developed conscience. 
How, then, does he conceive this primeval conscience to have 
got its development ? We are unable to conjecture ; but what- 
ever his answer may be, the one certain thing is that the devel- 
opment could not have been like that of which we now have 
any knowledge. It is very certain, at all events, that the " his- 
torical method " of investigation is unable to disclose how the 
primeval conscience became developed. The problem is left 
untouched. 

But however great may be the obscurity which rests upon 
the question, one thing, we repeat, is absolutely certain : The 
primeval man was in an exceptional state ; the analogies of pres- 
ent life cannot be applied to him. He had no tradition, no 
instruction, from his ancestors. If, then, one is disposed to 
press present analogies in judging respecting the religion of the 
first man, one is led to favor, rather than to reject, the theory 



THE QUESTION OE A PRIMEVAL REVELATION. 77 

of a primeval revelation. The revelation would have supplied 
to him what now is given by tradition. The force of tradition 
is now so great in determining men's religious opinions that 
some even question whether the present religious beliefs of 
mankind have any other foundation than a blind adoption of 
what has been held before. The closest possible analogy to the 
present condition of things would have been secured to the first 
man, if his religious conceptions had been first called forth by 
some external communication. And in his case this could have 
been nothing but a divine revelation. For him, so to speak, the 
supernatural was the only natural method. 1 

One need, therefore, not be overawed by the allegation that it 
is " unphilosophical " to assume a primeval revelation. And 
when we are told that such an assumption is not only not 
proved, but capable of positive disproof, we can only say that 
the disproof is still to be discovered. The ostensible arguments 
against it consist in mere assertions, or else rest on radical 
misconceptions of what the theory opposed really is. 

Thus, Dr. Fairbairn says that the theory of a primeval rev- 
elation as the source of the idea of God would imply " what 
Schelling happily termed 'an original atheism of consciousness.'" 2 
Of course a theory of primeval revelation may be held in such 
.a form as to assert or imply a total want of theistic sense in 
the original man. But probably the person is yet to be found 
who ever really entertained any such a notion as that man was 
first created with no tendency to believe in a God, and was 
afterwards forced into the belief by a supernatural revelation. 
And only such total want of tendmcy to theism can be properly 
called " atheism of consciousness." It would seem to be little 
less than absurd to suppose that God would make human beings 
with no constitutional inclination to believe in him, and then 

1 " If the law prevailing in the infancy of our race has been at all like the 
law prevailing in the infancy of the individual, then man's first beliefs were 
derived from Authority, and not from either reasoning or observation. I do not 
myself believe that in the morning of the world Theism arose as the result of 
philosophical speculations, or as the result of imagination personifying some 
abstract idea of the Unity of external Nature." — Duke of Argyll, Unity of 
Nature, p. 3. 

2 Studies, etc., p. 22, quoting Schelling, Philosophie der Mythologie, p. 141. 



78 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

undertake to supply that deficiency by means of a special out- 
ward communication. But what is the difficulty of supposing 
both that there is implanted the native inclination, and then 
that God gratified that inclination by an objective manifestation 
of himself ? This would only be in accordance with the whole 
constitution of things in general. Men come into existence 
with faculties of perception fitting them to take cognizance of 
the material world. These faculties are meaningless and use- 
less, unless there is an objective universe which can be perceived 
by the senses. The tendency, the ability, to perceive is first cre- 
ated, and then the object of perception is brought before us, and 
we perceive it. The child is created with a tendency to seek 
nourishment from the mother. There are the necessary facul- 
ties and organs, and there is the strong instinctive longing. But 
the organs and the longing do not constitute the knowledge of 
the maternal source of supply. The parent must be presented 
objectively in order that the instinctive tendencies may be 
transformed into positive cognition. Suppose, now, some one 
should object to the necessity of this palpable appearance of the 
mother, on the ground that the innate capacities and instincts 
of the child are sufficient to enable him to arrive at the knowl- 
edge of his parentage. Suppose he should say that the doc- 
trine of the necessity of such a manifestation implies an "original 
motherlessness of consciousness " on the part of the child ; what 
should we think of such a style of argumentation ? Yet this is a 
precise parallel to the reasoning of those who find in the theory 
of a primeval revelation an implication that the primeval man 
was afflicted with an " original atheism of consciousness." 

Analogy, we conclude, favors, rather than otherwise, the the- 
ory of a primeval revelation. It does so by suggesting that the 
parental and ancestral traditions which now form so large and 
essential a part in developing the theistic belief must originally, 
when there was no such instruction, have been replaced by a 
direct communication from God himself. This argument is, in- 
deed, not logically demonstrative. It does not necessarily follow, 
because all men, since the first man, have received their first 
religious conceptions as a traditional impartation, that therefore 
the first man also received his from an outward person, — who, 



THE QUESTION OF A PRIMEVAL REVELATION. 79 

in his case, could have been no other than God. It is possible to 
suppose that the first men, purely through the operation of their 
own minds, worked their way up to some kind of a theistic be- 
lief, and that then this belief was transmitted and gradually 
modified as the race increased in numbers. But in making such 
a supposition we are departing from all analogies ; we are in- 
dulging in a pure hypothesis, for the truth of which not the first 
shred of positive proof can be adduced. This explanation of 
the origin of theism may call itself philosophical, but it can 
hardly be called satisfactory. 

We are considering the problem now as it presents itself 
to those who believe in the existence of a personal God. Such 
cannot but ask themselves whether God desires men to know 
him. To ask the question is to answer it, if God is really re- 
garded as personal, and man as made for a worthy purpose. 
That God should make men and implant in them aspirations 
after God and immortality, and not even desire that they should 
be able to get beyond vague longings and uncertain guesses into 
the peace of an assured personal knowledge of their Creator, — 
this is well-nigh inconceivable. But if we assume that God, 
having made men, must have desired to be known by them, the 
next question is, whether God must not at once have made him- 
self known to men by some special manifestation of himself. 
This also seems almost self-evident. If desirous of being known 
by men in general, why not by the first men ? If such a thing as 
a revelation was ever to be made at all, why should it not have 
been made then ? If it was possible for such a revelation to be 
made, the fact of it would seem to follow of itself. 

But the impossibility of a primeval revelation is just what is 
urged as an objection against the theory. Dr. Fairbairn's argu- 
ment dwells on the difficulty involved in the want of a lan- 
guage. The argument from the inherent impossibility of a 
divine communication is still more sharply presented by Pflei- 
derer, 1 who says : " How should primeval man, with mental facul- 
ties as yet entirely undeveloped, have been capable of grasping 
the difficult thought of the one infinite God and pure Spirit ? 
. . . The acquisition of higher general ideas presupposes a no 

1 Religiomphilosophie, 2d ed., vol. ii. pp. 6, 7. 



80 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

small degree of preparatory training. The attainment of spir- 
itual conceptions, which in the education of our children is 
crowded into years, because they have before them the heritage 
of the past which has thought for them, — this could, in the 
case of the childhood of the race, be acquired only by a process 
of culture extending through hundreds and thousands of years. 
A ready-made communication of the knowledge of God by a 
primeval revelation breaks down, therefore, simply because 
primeval man was, at the outset, psychologically incapable of 
grasping such instruction." 

This is sufficiently explicit, even if not very conclusive. The 
force of the argument depends on two assumptions, neither of 
which is proved. The one is that the primeval man was a 
mere child in intellectual power. The other is that the knowl- 
edge of God is real only when it amounts to a clear intellectual 
apprehension of him in his infinity. It is described as the 
acme of philosophic thought, and therefore as coming necessarily 
late in human development. 

The first assumption, though a mere assumption, can yet not 
be disproved. But it is unnecessary to determine just what 
the intellectual capacities of the primeval man were. The argu- 
ment breaks down chiefly because the other assumption is 
palpably erroneous. The knowledge of God which may be 
expected from a revelation is not primarily or chiefly a phil- 
osophical conception of him in his absoluteness and infinite 
perfections. Were this the case, it may be argued that he can 
never be known at all. At the best only the more intellectual 
and spiritual in any age of the world could truly know God 
even in a partial sense. The knowledge of God, however, which 
man chiefly needs to have is an ethical knowledge, — a knowl- 
edge of him as a real person, as a loving Father, and as a just 
Euler, — a knowledge of him as a higher Being, holding con- 
trol of human and earthly affairs, and ready to attend to human 
wants. Such a knowledge required no elaborate philosophical 
culture in the primeval man, any more than it requires the same 
now in the merest child, who, as soon as he begins to talk, gets 
some conception of God, though utterly incapable of grasping 
the generalizations of the philosopher. Let the primeval man 



THE QUESTION OF A PRIMEVAL REVELATION. 81 

have been ever so simple and childlike ; no one can ever show 
any reason why he could not have understood something about a 
Divine Being, — enough to serve the purpose of a real knowledge. 
God is doubtless in some sense infinite ; but his deity does not 
consist merely in his infinity. And whatever the primeval man 
needed to know of God as a Euler, a Friend, a Father, he cer- 
tainly was capable of knowing. Indeed, it sounds little less 
than ridiculous to hear the primeval human race pictured as 
such a benighted, groping company of creatures, stumbling 
along through thousands of years, with no positive knowledge 
of that which it is of most concern to know — and that, simply 
because God could not be known till after these thousands of 
years of searching. And the strangeness of the theory comes 
out all the more strikingly, when we find that the original man 
is, after all, credited with the faculty of seeking and finding a 
superhuman power in the world. 1 Suppose, now, that the reve- 
lation did not attempt to go beyond what man himself was able 
to think or conjecture by himself ; suppose the revelation con- 
sisted only in a palpable self-manifestation which simply con- 
firmed, as correct, the native longings and surmises of the human 
soul ; suppose, in short, that God revealed himself in order 
to transform speculation and desire into assured knowledge, 
-and without attempting to present any higher and more difficult 
conception than human apprehension could grasp, — what then ? 
In so far as man's conjectures and premonitions were correct, 
they would be confirmed. Man would stand consciously over 
against a God whom before he had only felt after if haply he 
might find him. What, then, is the difficulty in supposing a 
revelation which attempted to give no more than man was able 
to receive ? The whole difficulty in the doctrine of a primeval 
revelation is an artificial one, coming from the gratuitous as- 
sumption that its only object could have been to impart a 
neatly scientific and philosophically perfect conception of God's 
essential nature and infinite perfections. There also underlies 
this objection the assumption that nothing could be imparted 
which was not already possessed. The revelation, it is said, 
could not have been apprehended till hundreds and thousands 

1 Religionsphilosopkie, vol. ii. pp. 24 sqq. 
6 



82 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

of years had trained the human race to grasp the necessary- 
generalizations. The inevitable inference is that no revelation, 
earlier or later, could really enlarge the extent of human knowl- 
edge. In short, the argument virtually bears equally against 
the possibility of any revelation. 

And yet the very argument by which this conclusion is 
reached lays stress on the advantage which children now have 
in receiving from their elders the mature results of past thinking, 
so that they learn in a few years what it took primeval man- 
kind centuries to learn. Surely, if the mere child now, with 
undeveloped powers, can grasp the notion of a God, as commu- 
nicated by his parents, may not the aboriginal man, infantile 
though we may choose to conceive him, yet have been able to 
take in the notion of God as communicated by God himself ? 

A similar reflection forces itself upon us when we read the 
discourses of such men as Theodore Parker and F. W. Newman, 
wherein they set forth the doctrine that revelation is and can 
be nothing but the soul's instinctive apprehension of God. They 
recognize the fact, indeed, that pure monotheism has by no means 
been the universal religion of men. They cannot shut their 
eyes to the grossness of fetichism and many forms of polythe- 
ism. But, says Mr. Parker, 1 " each of these forms represented 
an idea of the popular consciousness, which passed for a truth, 
or it could not be embraced ; for a great truth, or it would not 
prevail widely ; yes, for all of truth the man could receive at 
the time he embraced it." 

It is astonishing to see how serenely oblivious such writers 
seem to be of the plainest facts. They apparently conceive 
that each individual evolves his own religion and theology out 
of his own heart and brain, or that if one takes his religion from 
another, he is guilty of a grave offense. No revelation from 
without is admitted to be even possible. A " book-revelation " 
is especially denounced as a delusion or even as an absurdity. 
The argument is that whatever pretends to be a revelation 
must prove itself to be such ; that the recipient must be com- 
petent to test the claims of the pretended revelation ; but that 
the very fact that he is able to test and judge the worth of the 

1 Discourse of Religion, 4th ed., p. 102. 



THE QUESTION OF A PRIMEVAL REVELATION. 83 

professed revelation shows that he must virtually already have 
the revelation within him. 

The truth in the matter is very simple. Of course a revela- 
tion of divine things cannot be made to a stone, nor to a tree, 
nor to a beast. There must be a capacity to understand the 
things communicated, else there can be no communication. 
Mr. Parker himself 1 admits the power of one man to "waken 
the dormant powers " of another. What, then, are we to make 
of his declaration that the nations that have been sunk in the 
lowest forms of fetichism and polytheism have had all of truth 
that they could receive at the time ? Take two tribes both of 
which are living in the practice of cannibalism and every beastly 
vice. The one is visited by missionaries, and after a few years is 
led to embrace a pure theism and a pure morality. The other 
meanwhile remains in its besotted condition. "Will any one say 
that now in both cases the tribes have all the truth that they 
could receive ? Is it not manifest that the difference between 
the two does not lie in any difference of capacity, but in the fact 
that in the one case the dormant powers have been wakened, 
and in the other not ? In other words, the one has received 
a human communication which has been the means of trans- 
forming its conceptions and its practices. Cannot a divine com- 
munication do as much ? How is it that a capacity to receive 
a revelation from man proves that one cannot come from God ? 
The world is full of illustrations of the power of some men to 
communicate to others what without such communication they 
would never have thought or known. Nearly all knowledge is 
in this sense the result of revelation. The deists who under- 
take to convert men to deism hope and expect to awaken con- 
victions and opinions which otherwise would not be cherished. 
As Mr. Rogers 2 has keenly shown, they practically hold that 
" that may be possible with man which is impossible with God." 
A similar comment is suggested by Mr. Greg's proposition 
that the human mind cannot receive an idea which it could not 
originate ; that is, could not originate " in the course of time 
and under favorable conditions." If an idea, he says, " from 

1 Discourse of Religion, 4th ed., p. 197. 

2 Eclipse of Faith, 10th ed., pp. 63 sqq. 



84 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

its strangeness, its immensity, its want of harmony with the 
nature and existing furniture of the mind, could never have 
presented itself naturally, would not the same strangeness, the 
same vastness, the same incompatibility of essence, incapaci- 
tate the mind from receiving it, if presented supernaturally V' 1 

This objection, though propounded as quite conclusive, rests 
on such a singular conception of the relation of things that it 
is even difficult to reply to it seriously. The author apparently 
thinks, in the first place, that revelation can have to do only 
with ideas ; and in the second place, that these ideas must be 
so strange and so incongruous with nature and with man's 
mental constitution as to be intrinsically hard or impossible 
to receive. The reply is very obvious : (1) Even if it were 
true that revelation deals only with ideas, and were also true 
that what is revealed might in course of time have been origi- 
nated by the human mind, it would not follow that these same 
ideas might not be communicated supernaturally, and thus be- 
come a possession of man vastly sooner than otherwise. Doubt- 
less the human mind is capable of evolving the most intricate 
principles of geometry ; but that fact does not prevent their 
being communicated to thousands who never would of them- 
selves have come to any conception of them. But (2) revela- 
tion does not have to do only with ideas ; it has to do with 
facts. Eevelation, if it is anything, is chiefly a history, — it is 
God making himself known in events, not merely inspiring 
thoughts in the human mind. If, for example, the birth, life, 
deeds, and words of Jesus Christ were a divine revelation to 
man, they might be such, and present no idea which, by its 
strangeness or immensity or want of harmony with nature and 
with the human mind, should make it difficult or impossible 
for the mind to receive it. But would it follow that man in 
the course of time would originate the facts and truths of 
Christian history ? But (3) even in so far as we confine our 
attention to ideas which man might and does originate, what 
we want to know is, what ideas are true. For example, men 
have had the most various conceptions of God, — all the way 
from the low conceptions of the fetich-worshiper to the most 
1 Creed of Christendom, 8th ed., vol. ii. pp. 172 sq. 



THE QUESTION OF A PRIMEVAL REVELATION. 85 

abstract and shadowy conceptions of the pantheist or the 
agnostic. Now, assuming that none of these notions have 
come from revelation, we must still raise the question, Which 
of them is correct ? Which corresponds to the fact ? If a 
revelation can settle that question, it will do a glorious ser- 
vice; and no one can have any interest in arguing that any 
one or all of these notions of the Deity could not have been 
originated except by a supernatural revelation. Eeligion does 
not consist in airy speculations, without regard to the truthful- 
ness of the speculations. It consists in serving the true God. 

Pfleiderer has another objection against the theory of a 
primeval revelation. If actual, he says, it must have been one 
and self -consistent, presenting the absolute truth, so that, if 
the first family had it, there could have been no such endless 
number of mutually contradictory systems of religion in the 
world. This objection also, if valid, must of course be equally 
valid as against the assumption of any actual revelation what- 
ever, since no alleged revelation has in fact, even when fixed 
in a written record, secured uniformity of opinion even within 
the circle directly affected by the revelation. The possibility 
of a modification or corruption of the revelation is surely too 
obvious to need demonstration. If this possibility is a reason 
why a primeval revelation would have been useless, then for 
the same reason, if not to the same degree, any later revelation 
would be made ineffectual. Pfleiderer says : " If God was able 
to communicate the true faith to mankind by means of a pri- 
meval revelation, must it not have been just as easy, and even 
easier, for him to make sure that this valuable knowledge of 
primitive man should not at once be lost?" 1 If it is easier 
to prevent a revelation from being corrupted or lost than it is 
to make one, and if, as we very well know, even the so-called 
revelation the record of which is most fully preserved is never- 
theless subject to the grossest perversions, then the only con- 
clusion must be that no revelation has really been made or can 
be made. And in the ordinary sense of revelation, this is no 
more than Pfleiderer himself would affirm. 

1 Religionsphilosophie, vol. ii. pp. 5, 6. So Zeller, Ursprung und Wesen der 
Religion,, p. 7. 



86 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

Still another objection, however, is urged by him. The 
theory of a primeval revelation, he says, contradicts the facts 
of history, inasmuch as the farther back we go, the cruder 
become the religious notions of men, whereas if the first man 
had an accurate revelation, the reverse would be the case. 
There would be much force in this objection, if the alleged 
fact were proved. But the more thorough investigation of 
religious history tends to show that the real fact is just the 
opposite of the alleged one. 1 It has been made evident that 
the earlier forms of the religions of India and of Egypt were 
purer than the later, so that the argument against a pri- 
meval revelation from this source is turned rather into an 
argument for it. When we consider how easily the external 
features of a religion are retained and emphasized, to the neg- 
lect or total loss of the inner substance ; when we see how 
great superstitions and corruptions have crept into the Chris- 
tian Church and still hold sway, in spite of the wide-spread 
circulation of the original Christian Scriptures, — we find no 
difficulty in believing that a primeval revelation may have 
suffered great perversions as it was handed down. But this 
does not prove it not to have been given, unless it proves that 
no revelation ever has been, or ever can be, given. All the 
difficulties found by the so-called philosophy of religion in the 
hypothesis of a primeval revelation grow out of assumptions 
which make all revelations (if we retain the name at all) 
purely natural processes. We have found no difficulties in 
the way of such a revelation which do not substantially lie 
against any supernatural revelation. The foregoing considera- 
tions, therefore, are fitted to meet, in part, the objections which 
are made against the claims of alleged particular historical 
revelations. But these require a separate and fuller treatment. 
And as Christianity makes the most decided and plausible claims 
to the character of a revealed religion, the general questions 
respecting revelation may be conveniently combined with the 
special questions that arise respecting the Christian revelation. 

1 Cf. Max Miiller, Hibbert Lectures, 2d ed., p. 68; Renouf, Hibbert 
Lectures, 2d ed., p. 249 ; Duke of Argyll, Unity of Nature, pp. 542 sg. 
Burnouf, however {Science of Religions, p. 100), affirms the opposite. 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION. 87 



CHAPTEE IV. 

THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION. — GENERAL FEATURES. — MIRACLES 

DEFINED. 

THE claims of Christianity to be regarded as a divine reve- 
lation may be considered with reference to the contents 
of the alleged revelation, or with reference to the form of it. 
That is, we may give prominent attention to the facts and 
truths which Christianity professes to make known, or, on the 
other hand, to the more external features which stamp it as a 
special revelation from God. The two methods of treatment 
cannot be absolutely detached from each other ; but relatively 
they may be. And it is the second of the two that we propose 
to pursue in the following discussion. 

These more external features which characterize the Christian 
revelation relate chiefly to three points : The limitation of the 
revelation to a particular time ; the demand which it makes 
upon men's faith in particular individuals ; the stress which it 
lays upon a particular mode of outward authentication. In each 
of these cases the peculiarity may be treated as an argument for, 
or as an objection against, the alleged revelation. 

I. It is one feature of a revelation, in the ordinary sense of 
that word, that it must be limited to a particular time and place. 
It must be addressed to some particular person or persons, 
while men in general can only receive it mediately from the 
organs of the revelation. 

Now, against this there arises the objection that, if a revelation 
is needed at all, it is needed for all, and that there would be an 
inexcusable partiality and inequality in singling out some par- 
ticular persons, times, and places, as the ones to be favored with 
the communication. J. Stuart Mill puts this objection forcibly 
as follows : " There is one moral contradiction, inseparable from 
every form of Christianity, which no ingenuity can resolve and 



88 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

no sophistry explain away. It is that so precious a gift, he- 
stowed on a few, should have been withheld from the many ; 
that countless millions of human beings should have been 
allowed to live and die, to sin and suffer, without the one 
thing needful, the divine remedy for sin and suffering which it 
would have cost the Divine Giver as little to have vouchsafed 
to all as to have bestowed by special grace upon a favored 
minority." 1 

Furthermore, the theory of special revelations is open to the 
objection, above suggested, that, in the process of transmission, 
they must become corrupted ; and to the additional one, that 
the more remote the time of the revelation, the more uncertain 
become the evidences of the reality of it. 

Finally, it is objected that no special historical revelation can 
be accepted as such, if it conflicts with the intuitions and con- 
clusions of one's own reason; while if it merely agrees with 
these, it is superfluous. This is Lessing's " broad ditch," which 
with all his effort he was never able to get over, — " Acci- 
dental truths of history can never become the proof of necessary 
truths of reason." 

It seems, therefore, plausible to hold that, if God really re- 
veals himself at all, he must reveal himself to all men impar- 
tially, to each man individually, so that there need be no 
uncertainty as to the fact or the character of the revelation. 

But if this is the alternative, then of course the conclusion 
must be that there never has been any true revelation at all, 
since nothing is more certain than that there has been the great- 
est diversity of religious beliefs in the world. Eevelation has 
not put an end to doubt and anxious speculation ; it has not 
made all men of one mind respecting God and spiritual things. 
Some men (for example, Theodore Parker) talk about "the 
absolute religion," as if amidst all the diversities of religious 
beliefs and practices there could be enucleated a common belief 
and a common religion. But it is manifest that there can be 
no agreement as to what the absolute religion is ; each one will 
have his own definition of it. And in any case the term " reve- 

1 Three Essays on Religion (Utility of Religion, p. 115). Cf. M. Tindal, 
Christianity as Old as the Creation, p. 344. 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION. 89 

lation " is not, and cannot be, applied to these varied theories as 
to what the absolute religion is. 

The simple fact, then, is that there are no infallible intuitions, 
no " necessary truths of reason," which constitute, or take the 
place of, a revelation, and furnish to mankind one common and 
immutable system of religious truth. Whether the theist can 
or cannot satisfactorily explain to himself why there is no such 
direct and uniform revelation to every individual, the fact re- 
mains that there is none. And so the question, whether there 
may not have been a local, historic, special revelation, is really 
left untouched by the objection. If there were a universal and 
perpetual revelation which makes all special revelations super- 
fluous, then doubtless belief in such special revelations would 
be irrational. But as the case actually is, there is no such 
objection in the way of special revelations. 

As to the difficulty which is felt on account of the possibil- 
ity of the corruption of a revelation through tradition, and on 
account of the uncertainty which lapse of time throws over the 
credentials of the mediators of the revelation, the reply is very 
near at hand : the historical method of communicating religious 
truth is simply in perfect accord with the method by which 
knowledge in general is communicated. What is generally 
.known or believed is not what comes intuitively to each indi- 
vidual without outward intervention. On the contrary, even 
what seems to be most intuitive is in great part accepted first 
on the ground of testimony. The truths of natural science be- 
come the possession of the many only through the medium of 
faith in the word of teachers and elders. Not many can, and 
still fewer do, go directly to the sources of knowledge, and 
acquire immediate proof of the truth of the propositions com- 
municated. The whole constitution of human society rests on 
this basis. If religious truth is liable to be perverted and 
corrupted through transmission, so likewise is every kind of 
truth. Whatever may be thought of it, however defective and 
loose such a system may seem to be, it is a simple fact that men 
are so constituted, and so related to each other, that what they 
know and think comes almost wholly as a communication from 
one to another, and is accepted as a simple matter of credible 



90 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

testimony. Even what seems to be the product of individual 
and independent thinking is never purely such. Strict origi- 
nality is nowhere to be found. Every mind bears the impress 
of the world of thought by which it is surrounded. And even 
those who break away from their environments, — the reform- 
ers who seem to spring by an innate impulse into some new or 
forgotten truth, — these are no exception to the rule. Luther 
did not become what he was by his own unaided intuitions. 
He was educated by Paul, and Augustine, and Huss, and 
Tauler, and Staupitz ; and through them, in combination with 
his own experience and reflections and his general knowledge of 
Christian truth, he was trained for his peculiar work. Any one 
who should rise up with some new and hitherto unheard-of 
scheme of religious or scientific doctrines, claiming that it is the 
direct product of his intuitions, might indeed find some follow- 
ers ; but by the most he would be simply ridiculed, and by 
none more surely than by those who object to Christianity on 
the ground that it rests on history and not on the intuitions. 

It is, therefore, a sophism to represent revelation as unsatis- 
factory and uncertain because it comes to us historically, and 
not by direct intuition. If this were the case, it would be 
proper and necessary to assume an attitude of permanent 
doubt as to all the science and history which comes to us as 
a communication from others. The doctrines of revelation, 
while they do not contradict any of our intuitions, do not pro- 
fess to be the product of pure intuition. The vital things in 
the revelation are historic facts. And what the historic facts 
are alleged as revealing is not doctrines which lay claim to be 
necessary truths of reason, but truths concerning God which 
the reason itself would not have reached, or, at the most, would 
not have been able to attain as certain truths. As Professor 
Bruce 1 has well observed, the facts of Christianity have in 
reality done for a large part of the world precisely what Lessing 
said no historical fact could do for him : they have introduced 
a fundamental change in men's conceptions of God. 

It is, then, no objection to the doctrine of revelation, that 
the revealed system has to be propagated by human tradition. 

1 Chief End of Revelation, p. 186. 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION. 91 

From the nature of the case this must be the method, in spite 
of the fact that this method opens the door to numerous per- 
versions and misunderstandings of the original revelation. 
This can be avoided only by such an absolutely compulsory 
inspiration, imparted to every man, as should instruct him 
infallibly how to understand the revelation. But if such an 
inspiration were feasible and actual, then it would practically 
supersede the revelation itself. The inspiration, not the ori- 
ginal revelation, would, in fact, be the authoritative thing. 
A single special revelation, left to be transmitted from one 
generation to another, would be replaced by an innumerable 
number of special revelations, each independent of the other, 
but all perfectly agreeing with one another. But no one pre- 
tends that there is any such infallible and uniform revelation 
imparted to all individuals ; so that the question whether there 
may not have been one or more special historical revelations 
is not touched by the objection. The objection can, at the 
best, have force only on the assumption that, if there were a 
God, he certainly would make himself infallibly known to 
every man, and that, since he is not thus made known, 
therefore there is no God at all. But we are not now deal- 
ing with atheists. 

It remains possible to assume that, but for the blinding and 
corrupting influence of sin, men would have a direct and cor- 
rect knowledge of God, so that special revelations would be 
needless. This is a very reasonable hypothesis, though no one 
can determine exactly what would have been the mode of man's 
cognition of God in that imaginary state of sinlessness. We 
may conceive that the knowledge would come as the result of 
an intellectual process of reflection, or as a sort of ethical 
intuition, or would be something analogous to our direct cog- 
nition of the external world. But whatever speculations one 
may indulge in respecting this matter, they do not help us ma- 
terially in the solution of the question as to the present fact. 
Men are not sinless. They do cherish the most false and 
fantastic conceptions of God. Even with all their revelations, 
real or pretended, they are sadly deficient in moral and spir- 
itual excellence. But even though sinfulness may make a 



92 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

direct and full knowledge of God impossible, it may yet be 
possible for God to reveal himself in an exceptional and his- 
torical way. 

But taking men as they are — a sinful race — it is by no 
means clear that it would be an advantage that the knowledge 
of God should be direct and complete. There are some con- 
siderations which make a more indirect method of communi- 
cation seem preferable. An immediate presence of the Divine 
Being, realized by men constantly, would have, we must sup- 
pose, an overpowering effect on them. In so far as religious 
character is a matter of growth, it would seem to be desirable 
that a certain freedom should be accorded to the mind in its 
appropriation of religious truth and motive. An unavoidable, 
all-absorbing sense of the Divine Presence, involving, as it would, 
a constant consciousness of the uncompromising and inexorable 
demands of the divine holiness, would simply overwhelm one, 
and make a free development of character impossible. If the 
immediate and ever-pursuing sense of the presence of the in- 
finitely Holy One should act compulsorily, the result would 
not be the production of a moral character, since this can 
come only as the product of free choice acting under motive. 
If such an immediate vision of God were possessed by sinful 
men, we can hardly conceive the consequence to be other than 
either a paralyzing terror or a hopeless hardening of heart. 
In order to the attainment of a holy character, there must be 
the possibility of doubt and of resistance. Men are on pro- 
bation, and there must be room for faith and unconstrained 
choice, if there is to be developed a really moral personality. 

But whatever might have been this imaginary relation of 
God to man, the fact is that such a direct intuition is wanting, 
and that men may disagree and doubt not only concerning the 
exact nature and character of God, but also concerning his 
existence. And we are not required to decide whether God 
might not and ought not to have proceeded otherwise in his 
dealings with men, but simply to find out what he has in fact 
done. If there is such a thing as a direct intuition of God 
accorded even to sinful men, very well, we have all the benefit 
of that, whether there has been a revelation or not. If there 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION. 93 

has been a revelation, it is so much in addition to what we 
should have had without it. 

This objection, therefore, against the hypothesis of special 
revelations, that revelation ought not to be confined to par- 
ticular times, places, and persons, is an objection to the consti- 
tution of things. It does not invalidate any truth or advantage 
which there may have been in a special revelation, to say that 
there ought to have been no need of any special revelation 
at all. 

II. Cognate with the foregoing general characteristic of reve- 
lation as being something special in time and place, is another, 
that revelation requires one to put peculiar confidence in cer- 
tain individuals. Christianity in particular insists on making 
the personal authority of Jesus Christ a controlling thing in 
religious belief and life. To some this is a serious objection. 
It seems like putting a man in place of God. It requires one 
to pay allegiance to a fellow-man. It requires us to take on 
trust what he affirms respecting God and spiritual things, and 
to suppress our own opinions and judgments, however carefully 
and conscientiously they may have been formed, provided they 
disagree with his. Moreover, what he held and taught comes 
to us, after all, through the medium of still other men, so that, 
even if he were worthy of such implicit trust, we cannot be 
entirely certain as to what he was, or what he would have us 
believe or do. 

This is an objection the force of which depends almost en- 
tirely on the mood of the individual. Whoever feels compe- 
tent to form his own opinions concerning the universe and his 
relations to it ; whoever feels no need of any spiritual illumi- 
nation or deliverance, — such a one will always rebel against 
the requirement of submission to Jesus Christ as his Master 
and Eedeemer. Historical evidence and arguments, however 
cogent, will not be conclusive to such a man. 

But to others — and those the most truly rational — this 
peculiar feature of Christianity, that it requires faith in a 
historical person, is a recommendation rather than an objec- 
tion. It is just in accordance with the order of things under 
which all men do and must live. All men have to be in- 



94 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

fluenced in opinion and practice by trusted teachers. From 
the beginning of life till the end of it all men depend on 
others for the knowledge they get and the motives that in- 
spire them. It cannot be otherwise. Life is too short, and 
human faculties are too feeble, to make it possible for us to 
get on otherwise. If we can receive information from one 
who can be trusted, that is the short way, and perfectly satis- 
factory way, of getting knowledge. But, the objection occurs, 
not all those who undertake to give instruction can be per- 
fectly trusted. True ; but none the less are we dependent on 
instructors. And the more incompetent they are to give ab- 
solutely trustworthy information and example, the more need 
would there seem to be of some authority eminent and trust- 
worthy enough to command the common faith of men, and 
to unite them into a harmonious community. 1 The more evi- 
dence there is that some one man, like Jesus Christ, is really 
worthy to be trusted as a Eevealer of divine truth, the more 
reason is there for rejoicing that such a source of light has 
been found, and for accepting his revelations. 

Moreover, if Christ is regarded not merely as a revealer of 
truth, but as a Leader claiming personal obedience, trust, and 
affection, here too the natural and normal cravings of men are 

1 There will doubtless always be found those who will cherish the conceit 
that the ideal condition of mankind is that in which every one evolves inde- 
pendently his own opinions and beliefs. One of the latest of these oracular 
and amusing utterances is to be found in Mr. Royce's Religious Aspect of 
Philosophy, p. 323, where we are gravely instructed as follows : " Most of 
us get our prejudices wholly from the fashions of other men. This is cow- 
ardly. We are responsible for our own creed, and must make it by our own 
hard work/' But the author himself, in his Preface, disclaims any strict 
originality. He has studied Kant, and Hume, and Schopenhauer, and Hegel, 
and Berkeley, and other philosophers ; and from them he has derived his creed. 
But most men are unable to have recourse to such sources of " prejudice." 
They cannot spend so much time and thought as Mr. Royce has been able to 
spend in elaborating out of learned books their own belief. Are they to be 
called "cowardly" for not doing what they cannot do? But if the meaning 
is that every one, with or without time and native capacity, must judge for 
himself as to the correctness of all the information which he receives from his 
infancy up, then it can only be said that such a notion is simply ridiculous. 
The ability to judge presupposes instruction already given. 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION. 95 

met. The declamations often uttered against authority, the 
demands made that every one shall be free to choose his own 
religion and work out his own ideals, — all this is simply ir- 
rational and impracticable. Men are fitted and obliged to live 
under authority. The child must be subject to the parent, the 
citizen to the state. He who submits most cheerfully to the 
necessary restraints of society shows the most manliness. Or 
if the laws of the household or of the state are sometimes un- 
just, the legitimate inference is, not that government as such is 
iniquitous, but that human government is imperfect. We are 
thereby led to look for a more worthy leader and ruler. What 
means the universal tendency to form parties founded on ad- 
herence to this or that eminent man ? What is the secret of 
the hero-worship to which all are more or less inclined ? It 
lies in the fitness and power of personal character to win en- 
thusiasm and service ; it lies in the natural craving for concrete, 
rather than abstract, models of worthy living. Virtue, to be 
understood, must be actual. Mere ideas of excellence, clothed 
in words ever so elegant or eloquent, are cold and powerless, 
compared with the incarnate virtues of a living man. There is 
no real virtue, except in virtuous beings. To be impressed by 
it, we need to see it, as much as, in order to be impressed by 
a beautiful landscape, we need to look at an actual one, not 
merely to imagine an ideal one. What men need is, not that 
this instinct should be crushed, but that it should be rightly 
directed. If this craving for a model of holy character can be 
met by presenting it with a worthy object ; if all that can be 
conceived of purity, benevolence, loveliness, and grandeur in 
moral character can be found concentrated in an actual being ; 
if this being is seen to be connected with us by ties akin to 
those which bind us to parents or friends ; if, instead of follow- 
ing a vague, abstract, ideal, self-imposed rule of action, we can 
follow one which is presented in a concrete form in this personal 
embodiment of all that is excellent in thought and character ; 
if those who are enslaved by sin can be made to feel the per- 
sonal presence of one who, while sinless himself and irrecon- 
cilably hostile to all moral evil, can yet bring to the guilty but 
repentant soul the assurance of forgiveness and of help in the 



96 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

conflict with temptation, — then we should have just what 
the instincts and exigencies of mankind seem most to require. 
And this is what Christianity presents, when it gives us Jesus 
Christ as a model, as an authority, and as a Saviour. In him 
the boasted " natural perception of truth " can detect that per- 
fect revelation of divine truth, that manifestation of God him- 
self, for which the race has been longing. In his life 

" The law appears 
Drawn out in living characters." 

The great power of Christianity consists in this very fact that 
it is a historical phenomenon, an objective reality which mere 
idealizing thought can neither produce nor nullify. The power 
of it in short is, and always will be, found in the fact that it is 
an authority, and that its authority is invested in a person. 

If it is still objected that it does not become a man to commit 
himself implicitly to a mere fellow-man and to follow his direc- 
tion, the answer is obvious. It is essentially involved in the 
Christian conception of Jesus Christ, that he is not a mere man, 
possessing intrinsically no higher dignity and authority than 
any other man, but that he is a unique man, peculiarly linked 
with God ; that he has a peculiar nature as well as a peculiar 
commission ; that he is not only a man, but at the same time 
more than man, possessing superhuman and supernatural en- 
dowments, and therefore entitled to claim peculiar allegiance. 

But this leads to the consideration of another feature of the 
Christian religion, often adduced as a weakness, though really an 
indispensable condition of the validity of its claims ; namely, — 

III. It involves the assumption of a supernatural agency. 

Revelation, in its specific sense, denotes a self-manifestation 
of God, made at some particular time and through the agency of 
particular individuals. Such a revelation, being limited, his- 
toric, and local, must have features which mark it as peculiar 
and certify it as genuine. In so far as the self-revelation of 
God is a universal and perpetual one, it is made through the 
ordinary and natural channels. Special revelations must be 
such as are not made in this usual and natural way ; in other 
words, they must be supernatural. In order to be recognized as 



MIRACLES DEFINED. 97 

exceptional and obvious expressions of the divine will, they 
must be attested by extraordinary, miraculous signs. 

Miracles have generally been regarded not only as accom- 
panying facts of a divine revelation, but as proofs of the reality 
of the revelation. In recent times, however, it sometimes 
almost seems as if the whole question of miracles had under- 
gone a radical revolution. Not only is the fact of their real 
occurrence contested, but it is contended that in any case they 
could serve no useful purpose. And Christian apologists, instead 
of treating miracles as an effective weapon to be used against 
the enemy, not unfrequently appear to regard them rather as 
weak fortresses undergoing attack and in imminent danger of 
being captured. But while it may be true that the older apolo- 
gists have often misconceived the true nature and meaning of 
miracles, and while there is need of careful definition, the force 
of the argument remains essentially what it always has been. 

In defining a miracle we need to guard against overstatement 
on the one hand, and understatement on the other. In general, 
miracles are to be defined as events produced by special, extraor- 
dinary, divine agency, as distinguished from the ordinary agen- 
cies of inanimate and animate nature. 

1. It is an overstatement, when a miracle is spoken of as a 
violation, or suspension, or transgression, of the laws or forces of 
nature. Many theologians have been guilty of this overstate- 
ment, though it is not true that this is the general conception 
which has prevailed, and certainly not the one now most com- 
monly propounded by Christian apologists. And many who 
use these terms in their definition of a miracle do not mean by 
them what unbelievers in miracles find in them. Thus, it is 
certainly not meant that in working a miracle God comes, as it 
were, into collision with himself, transgressing his own laws, or 
attempting to better what is already "very good." It is not 
meant that " the same God who is accustomed to work through 
the orderly arrangement of the world " is in miraculous events 
"disturbing and upsetting this orderly arrangement." 1 It is 

1 M. J. Savage, Belief in God, p. 90. When Professor Park (in Smith's 
Dictionary of the Bible, American ed. art. Miracles) uses the term " viola- 
tion " in his definition, he so explains it as nearly to agree with those who 

7 



98 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

not meant that the general system of natural forces is sus- 
pended, or even that any one of these forces is temporarily 
abrogated. But still the expression is infelicitous. Even in 
the mildest sense it suggests a disturbance of the regular course 
of things such as there is no ground for assuming. All the 
agencies of nature are divine agencies. They produce their 
effects in an orderly and, to a great extent, calculable way. 
There is no necessity for supposing that they are ever sus- 
pended. A general suspension of any force, such as gravitation, 
would work general chaos and ruin. The ordinary effect of 
gravitation may sometimes be counteracted by some other force, 
as when a piece of iron is drawn up and held by a magnet. If 
now such an effect were produced by divine intervention, but 
not through the ordinary interaction of physical forces, the 
effect would be a miracle. But no law is violated any more 
than when such a counteraction is produced by the normal 
operation of natural forces. 

Skeptics are only too eager to adopt this overstatement in the 
definition of miracles. Even Hume does so, although his phi- 
losophy makes the expression " violation " practically meaning- 
less. For he makes the notion of causality to be nothing but 
the consequence of an experience of the repetition of one object 
or event following another. 1 But if that is all there is in it ; 
if there is nothing in the nature of any force causing it to pro- 
duce a certain effect ; that is, if there is no inherent necessary 
connection between the antecedent and consequent, — then an 

repudiate this term. Thus under " B. 6 " he gives the following definition of 
a miracle : "A work wrought by God interposing and producing what other- 
wise the laws of nature must (not merely would) have prevented, or prevent- 
ing (Dan. iii. 27) what otherwise the laws of nature must (not merely would) 
have produced." This practically agrees with the exposition of Dr. TV. M. 
Taylor (The Gospel Miracles, p. 11), who objects to the word " violation," 
and defines a miracle as simply the il introduction and operation of a new 
cause." Mill {Logic, Book III. ch. xxv. § 2) in like manner defines a mira- 
cle as " a new effect supposed to be produced by the introduction of a new 
cause." Similarly J. H. Newman, Two Essays on Miracles, 2d ed. 1870, p. 4; 
Bushnell, Nature and the Supernatural, p. 338 ; TVarington, Can we believe in 
Miracles? ch. iii. ; Principal Cairns, Christianity and Miracles, p. 4 (Present 
Bay Tracts, vol. i.). 

1 Essays, vol. ii. p. 63, Green and Grose's edition. 



MIRACLES DEFINED. 99 

exception to the ordinary sequence is not intrinsically incredi- 
ble. The general testimony to the effect that certain antece- 
dents have been followed by certain consequents simply shows, 
on this principle, that this is in fact the usual order ; but it is 
intrinsically just as credible that a different sequence should 
take place. All that is needed is trustworthy testimony to the 
exceptional occurrence. Such testimony, on Hume's principle, 
would not be a contradiction of the ordinary experience, although 
Hume calls it such. The fact that a hundred men have testi- 
fied to seeing A follow B furnishes, on his principle, no reason 
for expecting that the hundred and first man will not testify 
that on a different occasion he saw B follow A. Each sequence 
is a fact by itself — an ultimate fact — believed in simply be- 
cause experienced or attested ; but there being no ground for 
supposing that there is any intrinsic and necessary connection 
between the antecedent and consequent, an event deviating 
from the perceived order is just as much to be believed, when 
experienced or attested, as an event which conforms to it. 
Moreover a miracle, on this view of the case, cannot be distin- 
guished from any unusual event. 

Hume's argument, therefore, would have been stronger, if he 
had held to the existence of natural forces operating by an in- 
herent necessity, — the doctrine which now commonly obtains 
among scientists. To them the notion of a violation of natural 
law has a genuine meaning such as it could not have had to 
Hume. An allegation that an established natural force has 
ever been suspended in its operation has to such men an in- 
trinsic incredibility, because it contradicts their very notion of 
what a natural force is, namely, a force operating uniformly and 
incessantly. The weight of a uniform experience and testimony 
is supposed by them to have proved more than the mere indi- 
vidual facts of the experience, namely, the fact that there are 
material forces operating according to an inward necessity, and 
therefore operating in a perfectly methodical manner. Accord- 
ingly, we find now the author of Supernatitral Religion, before 
he takes up and defends Hume's argument, combating Dr. 
Mozley, who had adopted substantially Hume's doctrine of 
causation, and vigorously contending that " an order of nature 



100 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

is at once necessary and fatal to miracles." 1 With this anony- 
mous author nature is a real thing, having a " constitution " and 
" laws." 2 This is to him the certain thing. Whether there is 
a personal God or not, he does not profess to know. He ap- 
pears to doubt it, and demands, at any rate, a demonstration 
of the tenet before he can even entertain the thought of a 
miracle. 3 

But atheists or agnostics, so long as they remain such con- 
sistently, can never be made to believe in miracles. It is more 
important to avoid exaggeration in the conception of miracles, 
when dealing with professed theists who are so convinced of the 
inviolability of law, as the eternal expression of the divine will, 
that they regard it as impossible to prove the reality of any 
event which violates those laws. Thus, Weisse 4 argues that, 
even in witnessing or hearing about miracles, we depend 
on the validity and uniformity of natural laws. We can trust 
the testimony of eye and ear only in so far as they follow 
the laws of sight and sound. It is, therefore, he says, absurd 
to make our faculties, whose trustworthiness depends on the 
inviolability of natural law, themselves accept an allegation 
which implies the assumption that natural law in other cases 
has been violated. Consequently, even if we do not see through 
the process, and are not able to trace the operation of natural 
forces, we yet assume that they have operated. 

This is a more subtle objection to miracles than Hume's. 
But its force lies in the tacit assumption that miracles, if oc- 
curring, would be violations of natural law. And Eothe adopts 
the true and only valid line of defense, when he contends that 
miracles are not violations of natural law, for the simple reason 
that the efficient force in the working of miracles is entirely 

1 Vol. i. p. 60. Canon Mozley, by his definition of miracles as " contra- 
dictions " or "suspensions" of physical law (Bampton Lectures,^. 19, 128, 
ed. 6), and by his adoption of Hume's doctrine of causation, exposed himself 
to some of the severe strictures which he received in Supernatural Religion. 

2 Ibid., p. 49. Eor a criticism of the author's use of Hume and Mill, cf. T. 
R.. Birks, Supernatural Revelation, ch. xvii. 

8 See Excursus V. 

4 Philosophische DogmatiJc, vol. i. pp. 96, 100, 229. Cf. Hothe, Zur Dog- 
matik, p. 88, who replies to him. 



MIRACLES DEFINED. 101 

independent of natural law. It is not a natural force reversed 
in its operations, but another, higher, supernatural, force per- 
forming an effect which is perceptible through the natural use 
of the senses. Whether or when any force is supernatural 
rather than natural, one must decide, not by his senses, but 
by his judgment. The tricks of the juggler, though apparently 
contrary to all natural laws, are yet assumed to be, though in 
an unknown way, conformable to them. These displays of 
skill produce results as startling and apparently as miraculous 
as those which are regarded as really miraculous. By what 
right do we call the one miraculous, and the other not? The 
juggler, indeed, does not pretend to be working a miracle ; but 
may not the professed miracle-worker be after all only a jug- 
gler, though not so honest as he? In any case, does it not 
depend on the mind of the observer whether the act or phe- 
nomenon is regarded as miraculous or not? To this it must 
certainly be answered, Yes. In reply to Weisse, who had 
adopted as his own the language, " I would not believe my 
eyes, if I should see a supernatural miracle take place before 
them," Rothe pertinently observes, " The causal connections 
and relations of this visible fact no one is ever able to see 
anything of, in heaven or on earth ; but that they are super- 
natural, that is, that the fact is a miracle, is simply con- 
cluded ; and the experience of the fact is, in this conclusion, 
one of the premises which require it." * In other words, a phe- 
nomenon is regarded as a miracle or not, according as the direct 
unseen cause is assumed to be supernatural or not. Whether 
it is supernatural, or only a rare or mysterious action of natural 
forces, must be inferred, as one best can infer, from the cir- 
cumstances. In either case, an adequate cause is assumed : it 
may be a natural cause ; it may be a divine agency, acting aside 
from natural laws in an exceptional way. Whether one believes 
the latter to be the fact, depends, first, on whether he believes 
in a God at all, and next, on whether he is convinced that in 
this particular instance there is sufficient reason for assuming 
a special divine intervention. There is no violation of law in 
one's seeing the objective phenomenon ; the only question is, 

1 Zur Dog mat ik, p. 92. 



102 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

whether the cause of the phenomenon is natural or not. In 
a given case, therefore, for example, an apparent multiplication 
of loaves, making what would be enough for only a few suffice 
for thousands, whoever sees the appearance must judge for him- 
self whether the extraordinary supply has come in some natural, 
though unknown, way, or whether a supernatural power has 
directly furnished the supply. In such a case, the judgment 
must depend chiefly on the consideration, what the character 
and professions of the principal visible agent are ; whether he 
professes to have wrought a miracle or not; and, if he does, 
whether he is one who could be supposed to deceive intention- 
ally, or to be easily deceived himself ; also on the consideration, 
whether the person performing the deed claims to be, and prob- 
ably is, divinely commissioned to work miracles. 

The vexed question, what is to be understood by natural 
forces and laws, 1 does not affect the decision of the problem 
before us. Whether all natural phenomena be regarded as the 
immediate product of divine agency, or as caused by the opera- 
tion of natural forces acting in a uniform and regular way, — 
in either case, a miracle is an exception to the ordinary course 
of events, and an exception attributable to a special divine or 
supernatural intervention. It is sometimes said 2 that the an- 
cient Jews could have had no well-defined conception of a 
miracle, since to them everything was a direct product of 
divine power, and a miraculous event could have been to 
them, at the most, nothing but an unusual or startling event ; 
whereas modern science has now taught us to regard natural 
forces as the immediate, if not the sole, cause of the phe- 
nomena which we observe. These forces are now conceived 
as working uniformly and universally. A merely novel or 
startling event is assumed to be just as natural as any other. 
The investigation of such events always tends to show their 
connection with the established forces of nature. A miracle, 

1 The proper distinction between these two terms, often used interchange- 
ably, is well given by Dr. TT. M. Taylor {Gospel Miracles, pp. 11, 15), "Force 
is the energy which produces the effects ; but law is the observed manner in 
which force works in the production of these effects." 

2 E.g., by Ritschl, Jahrbilcher fur deutsche Theologie, 1861, p. 410. 



MIRACLES DEFINED. 103 

therefore, now appears to be more difficult to establish than 
at a time when no scientific conception of natural law ex- 
isted, and when anything and everything might be regarded as 
a direct and special manifestation of the divine power and will. 
It is certainly true that the question of miracles has in this 
way come to have a somewhat different aspect from what it 
once had. But the difference can never radically alter the 
problem. The advance of science and the prevalence of the 
doctrine that secondary causes are everywhere at work, and 
at work in a uniform way, — this may diminish the number 
of events which are to be classed among the miraculous; but 
it does not do away with the notion of the miraculous. On 
the contrary, the more sharply one may define and emphasize 
the operation of natural forces as the ordinary cause of visible 
phenomena, the more definite and clear becomes the concep- 
tion of a miracle. So long as God is conceived as directly 
doing everything, a miracle could at the best be to men's 
minds only some unusual display of divine power; there 
could be no sharp line of demarkation drawn between the 
miraculous and the non-miraculous. Now, however, a miracu- 
lous event must be regarded as caused by an altogether special 
intervention of God, over and above the ordinary operation of 
his natural forces. But the practical problem of miracles re- 
mains essentially the same that it always was. The ancient 
Jews, though they may have had no theory of natural force 
and natural law, like that of modern times, yet certainly had 
a conception of the regularity of ordinary events. They knew 
what to expect when they awoke from day to day. They 
expected to see the sun rise regularly, and to see the seed 
sprout which they put into the ground. God was to them a 
God of order. But if any unexpected and wonderful thing 
occurred, and especially if it occurred in connection with a pro- 
fessed communication from God, — this was to them a miracle, 
an exceptional mode of working on the part of God, designed 
to call special attention to the divine communication. And 
this is essentially the present conception of miracles. To use 
the words of Prebendary Eow, 1 the idea of a miracle " postu- 

1 The Supernatural in the New Testament, p. 127- 



104 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

lates the presence of a force or forces which are adequate to 
counteract the action of those already in existence and to pro- 
duce the adequate result." In other words, a miracle is a new 
and supernatural agency inserted into the complex of forces 
ordinarily in operation, just as a man, by the exercise of his 
volition and physical power, diverts the forces of nature from 
their ordinary course of working. 

2. On the other hand, however, we need to guard against 
understatements in the definition of miracles. 

Eespect for the sovereignty of law need not carry us so far 
as to seek to explain miracles in respect to the mode of their 
occurrence, and to show their essential conformity to, or de- 
pendence on, natural law. Some Christian writers weaken 
rather than strengthen the argument from miracles by their 
dread of anything " magical " in them. Thus the miracle at 
Cana has been explained as a sort of acceleration of the natural 
process by which the moisture of the earth and air are trans- 
formed into the juice of the grape, and this again into fer- 
mented wine. Such speculations are idle, and really explain 
nothing. 1 Such an acceleration of natural agencies would be 
in any case equivalent to the application of a special force 

1 Cf. Westcott, Gospel of the Resurrection, p. 37. Olshausen, who pro- 
pounds this view, says indeed that by it " the miracle is neither removed, nor 
explained naturally; the essence of the miracle consists in divinely effecting 
the acceleration of the natural process " (Comm. on John ii. 7-10). This 
being so, it is not easy to see what is gained by the hypothesis at all, especially 
as it is entirely without foundation, if not even without any clear meaning. 
If the making of the wine were an accelerated process of nature, then since 
the natural process requires a grape-vine, a growth of grape-clusters, the opera- 
tion of sun and soil on the vine, etc., an acceleration of this process would be 
impossible without all these elements. It is indeed conceivable that all this 
process could be condensed into a few minutes ; but it is very certain that 
this was not the case ; and since it was not the case, it is impossible to see 
how the miracle can properly be called an acceleration of the natural process, 
whatever may be the hypothesis which one chooses to adopt concerning it. 
It may be imagined, for example, that the elements of which wine consists, 
being in existence in the soil and in the atmosphere, might have been suddenly 
and miraculously brought into the water, and so there was no outright crea- 
tion of anything. But this would not have been the natural process ; and if 
anything else is meant, probably no one, not even the propounder of the 
hypothesis, could tell what the meaning is. 



MIRACLES DEFEND. 105 

which is distinct from any natural force ; and so the miracle 
is in no wise made intelligible by the hypothesis. 

Still less satisfactory is the theory which tries to mitigate 
the difficulty of believing in this miracle by transferring the 
marvel from the physical to the mental world. It has been 
suggested that the water found in the water-pots continued to 
be water, but through the wonderful influence of Jesus' preach- 
ing was made to taste as if it were wine. And the example of 
mesmerizers who are able to delude their subjects in a similar 
manner is adduced as a forcible illustration of the great proba- 
bility of this conception of the case ! 1 It is difficult to treat 

1 This is substantially the view of J. P. Lange {Leben Jesu, vol. ii. p. 308, 
English edition, vol. ii. p. 137), and of Beyschlag {Leben, Jesu, vol. i. pp. 307- 
309), following the lead of Neander {Leben Jesu, p. 272. The English edition, 
p. 176, Bonn's Standard Library, makes Neander contradict himself). Mat- 
thew Arnold's comment on this explanation {God and the Bible, Popular edi- 
tion, pp. 22-23) is well deserved : " This has all the difficulties of the miracle, 
and only gets rid of the poetry. It is as if we were startled by the extrava- 
gance of supposing Cinderella's fairy godmother to have actually changed the 
pumpkin into a coach and six, but should suggest that she did really change 
it into a one-horse cab." 

Rev. H. R. Haweis, in his Picture of Jesus, pp. 54 sqq., thinks it "trivial 
and dishonoring to Christ " to suppose him to have used any such occult 
power. His own explanation (called by him a " natural explanation") is that 
Jesus and his attendants brought not only wine enough for their own use, 
"according to custom " (how did Mr. Haweis find out about any such custom ?), 
but anticipating the probable exhaustion of the supply (why should they ?) 
brought more than they needed {i. «?., about five hundred quarts ! ) in order 
to be ready for the emergency. But not wishing to "do a kindness to get 
praised by others," Jesus told his disciples to leave the wine outside, so that, 
when needed, the wine could be " served up out of the host's own pots," and 
thus prevent the host's knowing that the supply had failed. Eor this reason 
also the rumor of something miraculous might have been started. Of course 
the command, " Pill the water-pots with water," has to be amended by strik- 
ing out the last two words. Of course also Jesus, according to this " natural 
explanation," practised deception on the people at the feast. But this seems 
to Mr. Haweis a small offense compared with what it would have been to 
" wound the host's feelings " by letting him know that the wine had run 
short. It is very kind in the author of this remarkable hypothesis to tell his 
readers, both at the beginning and at the end of his exposition of it, that he 
does not ask any one to accept it. Most persons will probably avail them- 
selves thankfully of this kind indulgence. 



106 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

such a notion seriously. If the analogy of mesmeric influence 
means anything, it must mean that the supposed miracle was 
after all no miracle. If this is not meant, then we must sup- 
pose that a real miracle was wrought, only that it was wrought 
on the minds of the company, not on the water. But this does 
not relieve us of the " magic " which is so much dreaded, and 
it does burden us with the assumption that Jesus was guilty of 
a stupendous deception. 1 

Others, while refraining from the attempt to explain the 
modus operandi of particular miracles, seek to propitiate the 
prejudice against miracles by laying down the general propo- 
sition that miracles, so far from being violations of natural 
laws, can be wrought only with the co-operation of the forces 
of nature. Thus Professor Ladd, whose general view of mira- 
cles we can assent to, seems to be here needlessly cautious. 
He criticises Rothe as being unwarrantably unguarded in say- 
ing that nature has nothing to do with the effect produced in 
the case of all proper miracles, and affirms, on the contrary, 
that " no event in history can even be conceived of without the 
co-operation of all the preceding forces and laws of the physical 
universe." " Miracles," he says again, " must be conditioned 
upon the existing course of nature." 2 These are statements 
which need qualification, or at least explanation, before they 
can be assented to. When, for example, it is said 3 respecting 
the wine made at Cana that, " even if we suppose its elements 
to have been wholly new creations, they were conditioned upon 
preceding and existing laws and forces of nature," what is 
meant ? If it is only meant that the wine made by Jesus was 
composed of the same elements as other wine, the statement 
affirms what is so self-evident that it hardly needs to be made 
at alL That would be only affirming that the wine made was 

1 This is virtually admitted by Beyschlag, who says (Leben Jesu, vol. i. p. 
310) : " That the Evangelist did not see through this psychical miracle, but 
interpreted it as a physical one, a miracle of transubstantiation, will be urged 
by no intelligent man [ !] against this view, which in fact resolves all difficul- 
ties, and even permits us to assume a dream-like unconsciousness on the part 
of the company concerning the occurrence." 

2 Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 296. 8 Ibid. 



MIRACLES DEFINED. 107 

real wine, and not, say, water somehow made to taste like wine. 
But we are reminded 1 that, according to the narrative itself 
(John ii. 9) "the water was, so to speak, the physical basis 
of the miraculous wine." But how does this help the mat- 
ter ? Water is indeed a large part of wine ; but that which • 
makes it specifically different from water is not water; and 
the statement that water was the physical basis of the wine 
throws no light on the question, how these additional, wine- 
producing elements got into the water, or in what sense the 
water itself was changed into wine. The statement seems to 
be intended as an intimation that there was no creative act in 
the case ; but what it can mean beyond this it is difficult to 
conceive. When, however, it is said that the miracle, even 
though one of outright creation, cannot " even be conceived of 
without the co-operation of all the preceding forces and laws 
of the physical universe," we must say that it would be more 
nearly correct to affirm just the opposite, namely, that such a 
miracle cannot be conceived as wrought with the co-operation of 
those forces. To affirm such a co-operation is to affirm that the 
forces of nature operate with the miracle- worker in producing 
the miracle. The fact, however, manifestly is that, in so far 
as physical forces are operative in the case, they do not help 
to produce the miracle, but rather work against it. In so far 
as the act is miraculous, natural forces cannot be said to tend 
to produce it, for that would be equivalent to saying that it is 
not miraculous. Of course, the product of the miracle becomes 
amenable to natural law. The wine at Cana, whether an out- 
right creation, or otherwise miraculously produced, must of 
course, after it was made, have operated like other wine. It 
adjusted itself to the natural course of things. And any such 
miraculous effect must be conceived as subjected to the ordinary 
laws of nature. But it does not follow that every miraculous 
cause must be conditioned on natural forces. It is difficult to 
see what fair exception can be taken to Eothe's proposition, 2 

1 Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 296. 

2 Zur Dogmatik, p. 102. And with this Kostlin entirely agrees (Jahrbiicher 
fiir deutsche Theologie, 1864, p. 258) : " God who, being a personal spirit, is 

self-determining, whose power does not discharge itself, as it were, in an invol- 



108 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

" In its genesis this miracle [the kind strictly so called] does 
not touch the realm of natural laws and their jurisdiction at 
all ; but as soon as it is once performed by God's absolute act, 
it too is at once an organic part of ' nature ' and amenable to its 
law." Professor Ladd says, 1 " To maintain that the miracle 
is accomplished in a wholly supernatural fashion, and without 
the co-operation of second causes, is to separate it from all 
human experience." But every miracle must, in a certain 
sense, be separated from all human experience, else it would not 
be a miracle. The effect of the miraculous agency must, it is 
true, be something palpable, and in that sense a part of human 
experience. But that which is distinctively miraculous in a 
miracle is not the effect, but the cause. The bread given to the 
multitude on Lake Tiberias was doubtless nothing wonderful ; 
it was simply bread. The miracle was in the production of it. 
And to say that the multiplication of the loaves was something 
separated from all human experience, that is, something utterly 
unlike ordinary human experience, is simply to say that it was 
a miracle. With Eothe we insist that a miracle is no violation 
of the laws of nature for the very reason that it has nothing to 
do with them, so far as its causation is concerned. It may 
have to do with them, and generally speaking must have to do 
with them, in the sense that nature is the field in which the 
miraculous agency operates, and that therefore the existing 
forces of nature must be recognized and dealt with. Those 
forces may perhaps in the miraculous agency be used, may be 
diverted into a channel where of themselves they would never 
operate. In such a case, however, the miraculous agency \s 
not the natural force, but the supernatural force, — something 
above the natural force, not conditioned upon it, but rather the 
power which originally conditioned it. But we have no right to 

untary impulse, and who in his love himself voluntarily created the finite world, 
can and will in like manner, whenever he directly intervenes in it, so limit his 
power, in itself unlimited, that it shall not undo the finite world, but rather 
only introduce into it a product which then itself belongs entirely to the corn- 
plexus of the finite world." So Christlieb {Modern Doubt, etc., p. 307) : " The 
laws of nature are in no way suspended thereby [by miracles] ; but ... the 
products of the miracle . . . take their place in the ordinary course of nature." 
1 Doctri?ie of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 296. 



MIRACLES DEFINED. 109 

affirm tliat in miracles natural forces are always or generally 
used at all. In miraculous healing, for example, where we might 
be most inclined to look for the operation of natural processes, 
under the direction of a superior will, it is impossible to deter- 
mine how far, or whether at all, the ordinary forces of nature 
operated in effecting the cure. Still less have we any ground for 
assuming that such miracles as the raising of the dead or the 
feeding of the multitude were wrought by making use of forces 
of nature. 1 If those forces of nature operated in these cases 
in a natural way, or only as mere human agency could di- 
rect them, then the acts in question were not miracles. And 
the only alternative is to assume that the effects were not pro- 
duced by natural forces operating in a natural way. But in 
this case there are two possibilities : Either the effects were 
produced by natural forces operating in a non-natural (super- 
natural) way, or they were produced by a supernatural force 
distinct from natural forces. But a natural force can be made to 
act in a non-natural way only by a supernatural power, so that 
these two possibilities are practically identical. The distinctive 
thing in the miraculous deed is the exercise of the supernatural 
power. Whether that power uses natural forces as the means of 
effecting the miraculous result, or effects the result directly, 
without the use of natural forces, is quite immaterial. 2 

1 Mr. Warington {Can we believe in Miracles? pp. 117 sq!) in arguing 
the point that miracles are not violations of natural law, suggests concerning 
this miracle that, as the essential constituents of bread and fish are derived 
from air and moisture, the material of the miraculous supply may have been 
derived from the natural source ; only " the manner and means of production 
is vitally different." But, he says, we cannot say that any force was acting 
in opposition to its natural laws. " On the contrary, we simply do not know 
what forces were at work ; and to talk of any of their laws being violated is 
simply impossible." This hypothesis may seem akin to the acceleration theory 
of Olshausen, but is essentially different. It does not make the process of pro- 
duction an acceleration of the natural process, but quite the contrary. But it 
would be equally true that no natural law is violated, if, instead of miraculously 
putting together materials derived from earth and air and so forming bread and 
fish, Jesus had created the material. We do not affirm that this was the case ; 
we only insist that in either case no law of nature is violated, because in either 
case the efficient cause is something distinct from the forces of nature. 

2 " The essence of a miracle consists in the immediate action of a rational 



110 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

There is, therefore, no warrant for laying down the prop- 
osition that a miracle cannot be performed without the co- 
operation of second causes. Indeed such a proposition, taken in 
any strict sense, is quite untenable, if we retain any faith in 
miracles at all, unless we resort to the theory of an outright 
" violation " of natural laws, against which this very mode of 
conception is directed. For if the natural causes " co-operate " 
to produce a miracle, they must do so either by operating in 
the natural and ordinary way, — in which case there is no mir- 
acle, so far as this operation is concerned; or else they must 
operate in a manner contrary to the natural and ordinary one, 
— in which case there would be a violation of natural law in 
the strictest sense of that term. Absolutely nothing is gained 
by any such attempt to connect miracles with natural forces. 
It is impossible to specify what second causes were used, for 
example, in the multiplication of the loaves. All that could be 
known was that the bread made its appearance where it could 
not be naturally looked for. Where it came from, how it was 
produced, could of course not be a matter of perception. It was 
simply inferred that in some supernatural way Jesus had pro- 
duced the supply. To the spectators and beneficiaries of the 
miracle it was quite immaterial whether Jesus accomplished 
the result by some mysterious manipulation of natural forces 
and substances, or by an immediate exercise of supernatural 
force. It is impossible to understand how a co-operation of 
second causes was necessary, as Professor Ladd asserts, 1 in 
order that miracles may render service to faith and realize 
their final purpose. It is hard to see why any believer in real 
miracles should not assent to Eothe's language when he says : 2 
" It has always seemed strange to me when I have seen exposi- 

free will in nature, directing its physical agencies to the effecting of results 
which, without this supernatural direction, they would not have effected." — 
Prof. S. Harris, The Setf-rerelation of God, p. 478. But would the author 
limit his definition to that supernatural action which works on nature and 
directs physical agencies ? It may he, indeed, that no other miracles have 
been performed ; but if an absolutely new substance should be created by 
divine power, would not that be a miracle ? 

1 Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 296. 

2 Zur Dogmatik, p. 101. 



MIRACLES DEFINED. Ill 

tors who believed in a revelation, and were avowed defenders of 
the Biblical miracles, yet in some sort troubled by such miracles 
as that at the marriage in Cana, and the miracle of the loaves 
(the very ones which are especially well attested), and troubled 
for the reason that in the case of these one cannot picture 
the process to the mind. I do not understand the difficulty ; 
for that this cannot be done lies expressly in the very notion 
of miracles, whenever, as here, they are taken in all their 
strictness." (See Excursus VI. in the Appendix.) 

The preceding observations indicate what should be said of 
another mode of conceiving miracles, which is sometimes re- 
sorted to in order to remove the objection that God would not 
interfere with the regular operation of his own laws. It is that 
miracles are the product of the laws of nature, but of a higher, 
occult order of nature. A miracle, according to this view, is 
not only not contrary to nature, but is strictly in accordance 
with it. Nature is compared to a clock so ingeniously con- 
structed that certain wheels in it move only once in a century, 
so that to those living at such times the phenomenon would 
have all the appearance of a miracle, though really the natural 
and necessary result of the construction of the clock. So mira- 
cles, it is thought, may be provided for in the divinely con- 
stituted order of nature, but wrought only by these rarely 
operating forces, and therefore occurring so exceptionally as to 
produce the effect of a special divine interposition. In short, 
miracles are the necessary effects of a higher law of nature. 1 In 

1 Cf. Dr. J. Y. Clarke's quotation from Ephraim Peabody (Orthodoxy, etc., 
pp. 64, 65). Dr. A. P. Peabody seems to favor this view in Boston Lectures, 
1870, on the Sovereignty of Law, pp.189 sq., where he compares miracles with the 
meteoric showers. In his Christianity and Science, p. 101, the more ordinary 
view appears to be argued. In his Christianity the Religion of Nature, p. 66, 
however, he says, "Miracles may be natural, not only absolutely, as in accord- 
ance with the Divine attributes, but also relatively, so far as the laws and the 
order of ths universe are concerned." Schleiermacher advances a similar view 
(Der christlirhe Glaube, vol. i. § 20, ed. 1). Professor von der Goltz {Die 
christlichen Grundwahrheiten, p. 352) says that miracles " have for our human 
conception the character of the surprising and the inexplicable, they are signs 
of divine power, witnesses of a supersensual order of the world ; but for God 
they are strictly according to law. . . . The miraculous world of revelation is 
supernatural, in so far as the notion of nature is limited to the sensuous world. 



112 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

this way it is thought that miracles can be made more intelli- 
gible and credible than when they are conceived as independent 
of natural law. 

But this conception makes the essence of a miracle consist, 
not in the specialness of the divine agency, but in the ignorance 
of man. The same element of human ignorance may make mir- 
acles out of inexplicable tricks of jugglers, or out of irregular 
natural phenomena, such as the occasional appearance of new 
stars. In both cases we should have to say that, while we do 
not suppose the occurrence to be independent of natural law, 
we simply do not know what the law is. Such events may be 
startling and wonderful, but they are not miraculous, except in 
the loose sense that everything may be miraculous if one only 
chooses so to regard it. Many writers, like Augustine, 1 speak 
of all the works of nature as marvels, inasmuch as they all 
involve inexplicable mysteries. This is very true, but a mira- 
cle does not consist in the inexplicableness of an event. And 
no more does it consist in its mere rareness, provided it is yet 
the product of natural forces acting naturally. If now it is 
assumed that the so-called miracles are really as much the 
product of natural forces as any other, only that the forces 
operate in a more occult way, then, as soon as we have come to 
take this view of the matter, the miracle loses all special signifi- 
cance. If the resurrection of Christ was brought about by 
physical forces acting just as necessarily as gravitation, and 
was therefore necessary in the same sense as the irregular 
appearance of comets, then that resurrection cannot of itself 
mean more or prove more than any other natural event which 

It is natural, in so far as one takes into view man's destination to lead a spir- 
itual life, and the relation of the heavenly nature-world to the earthly nature- 
world." Bishop Temple {Relations between Religion and Science, p. 195) 
likewise suggests that the miraculous sequence of phenomena may be " after 
all that of a higher physical law as yet unknown." Quite similarly Canon 
G. H. Curteis {Scientific Obstacles to Christian Belief, Lect. iv.). He repre- 
sents miracles as designed to produce an effect, and as having really produced 
it, though afterwards they may be recognized as having been quite in accord- 
ance with physical law. Against this conception Prof. A. B. Bruce {Miracu- 
lous Element in the Gospels, pp. 48 sqq) argues forcibly and conclusively. 
1 Cf. A. Dorner, Augustinus, sein theologisches System, etc., pp. 71 sqq. 



MIRACLES DEFINED. 113 

may startle by its strangeness, but nevertheless belongs as 
much to the machinery of nature as the most familiar things of 
every day life. This theory of miracles is in fact harder to 
believe than the ordinary one ; and therefore there is nothing 
to recommend it. There is something excessively forced in it. 
It would be next to impossible, for example, to make men 
believe that God from all eternity decreed that the forces of 
the universe should operate in such a way that on a single 
occasion, in a single place, water should suddenly be trans- 
formed into wine, or a few loaves of bread should suddenly be 
multiplied into hundreds. It is not enough to say that in such 
a case the law is occult; we cannot easily conceive that there 
should be any law in the case at all. 1 But even if the abstract 
possibility of such a thing were conceded, the question still 
arises, What is gained by it ? If the miracle is supposed to be 
designed to produce a special effect, to convey some religious 
lesson, or to confirm the words of some divinely commissioned 
messenger, why, then it must be assumed that the whole ma- 
chinery of the universe was planned so that these peculiar 
events should take place in a natural but startling way, in 
order to make the impression of a divine intervention. But 
if the only reason for these peculiar provisions in the world's 
machinery was to produce this impression on these compara- 
tively few occasions, there would seem to be no reason why the 
desired impression should not be produced rather by that which 
ought to produce it, that is, why there should not be a real divine 
interposition independent of physical laws. It certainly must 
be just as easy for God in his eternal plan to determine here 
and there, in the course of his providential government of the 
world, to interpose directly to produce effects which his ordi- 
nary natural forces would not produce, as it is to determine to 
have the effect brought about by a curious, and to human eyes 

1 Except in the sense that whatever God does there is a good reason for, 
and that it is done in accordance with an eternal purpose. The law is, in this 
case, not a law of nature, but a law of the divine mind. This is apparently all 
that Bushnell means when (Nature and the Supernatural, pp. 261 sqq.) he 
argues that God's supernatural agency " is regulated and dispensed by immu- 
table and fixed laws." 

8 



114 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

absolutely untraceable, operation of a physical force. And if 
just as easy, then of course much better, since surely the better 
way must be for God to do what he desires to seem to do. As 
Bishop Alonzo Potter well observes, 1 if miracles are only fore- 
ordained results of physical law, then "not only would the 
language in which they are described in the Bible be deceptive, 
but those who wrought them would in one important sense be 
impostors, and the miracles themselves a fraud." 

3. We may here consider the distinction often made between 
absolute miracles and relative miracles. The distinction is 
differently made by different writers. Thus Thomas Aquinas 
defines a miracle as that which is done contrary to the order of 
all created nature. 2 Others would define an absolute miracle 
as one caused by the suspension of only a particular law or 
application of a law ; others again, as an effect produced by the 
intervention of a special divine activity other than that of the 
forces of nature. Eelative miracles likewise may be variously 
conceived. One notion is that of an act or event which pro- 
duces the effect of a miracle, though in strict reality a purely 
natural occurrence. Another is that which makes all acts of 
the rational free-will supernatural, and so in a certain sense 
miraculous. Another is that which makes a relative miracle 
consist in natural processes modified by divine power. 3 Or, 
again, stress is laid on the distinction between miracles wrought 
directly by divine agency and miracles wrought through the 
agency of human beings. 4 It is manifest that the whole dis- 
tinction is a somewhat loose one ; what some would call an 
absolute miracle would be to others only a relative one. 

The burden of the foregoing discussion is to the effect 
that the distinction is more apt to be misleading than helpful. 
The principal distinction to be defined is that between a real 
miracle and a pretended or seeming one. Amidst all apparent 
diversities of conception there need not in fact be any very 

1 Religious Philosophy (Lowell Institute Lectures delivered 1845-53, pub- 
lished 1872), p. 124. 

2 Summa Theologica, Pars I. Qu. ex. art. iv. 

8 So Professor Ladd, Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 334. 
4 Cf. Dorner, Christian Doctrine, § 55, 4. 



MIRACLES DEFINED. 115 

material difference in the definition of a real miracle. The prin- 
cipal variation is to be found in regard to the question above 
touched upon, whether in the strict miracle God makes use of 
existing natural forces, or works immediately without making 
use of them. But even this difference is often more apparent 
than real. Thus Gloatz, after an elaborate survey of the ques- 
tion of the relation of miracles to natural law, concludes that 
Eothe and Julius Miiller and others are wrong who hold that 
God works miracles without the mediation of existing natural 
forces, and states his own view as follows i 1 " An absolute mir- 
acle would annul the existence of the universe, or transform it 
into God. God also works miracles, as complicated phenomena, 
by means of the general forces of nature and out of the possi- 
bilities and conditions involved in them, from which alone, 
however, they can be as little explained as the higher orders of 
nature, and man with his influence on nature. They may . . . 
be conceived as performed, in accordance with the will of God, by 
higher spirits, but also immediately by himself, the Creator, the 
great Geometer and Mechanic, who has in his hands all the threads 
of the complex of nature, and can connect them in the most varied 
ways." The working of a miracle is thus made analogous to the 
act of man, when he avails himself of his knowledge of natural 
forces and substances for bringing about what nature, left to it- 
self, would never produce. Similarly Otto Fliigel, 2 illustrating his 
point by reference to the miracle at Cana, says that, in so far as 
the wine is not conceived as an outright creation, the only manner 
in which an immediate act of God, without the use of natural 
agencies, can be conceived, is the pantheistic one, according to 
which things are only conditions, modi, of the divine substance. 
His own conception is that the miracle may have been, so to 
speak, "an improved and apocopated natural process," the ele- 
ments necessary to transform water into wine being abundant in 
the atmosphere, and only needing by a manipulation of natural 
forces to be brought together in order to produce the best wine. 
But just here we are brought to the question, How are these 
natural forces manipulated ? When men avail themselves of 

1 Wunder und Naturgesetz (in Studien und Kritiken, 1886), p. 543. 

2 Dm Wunder und die Erkennbarkeit Gottes, p. 36. Leipzig, 1869. 



116 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

their knowledge of nature in order to bring about changes and 
effects which natural forces of themselves would never pro- 
duce, they accomplish their purpose by using natural agencies, 
by directing them into such a channel, and combining them in 
such a way, as to effect a predetermined result. It is distin- 
guished from purely natural processes only by the direction 
which the human purpose gives to the operation of natural 
forces. Thus, it is natural for water to move downwards, and, 
when there is a descending channel, to move in a body in that 
channel. An earthquake, or some other natural convulsion, 
might change the channel, and in that case it is simply natural 
for the water to move in the new channel. If, now, men de- 
termine to change, and do change, the course of a river, the 
only thing not strictly natural about the process is just this 
determination, with the several volitions that are involved in 
it. It is quite natural that the spades should move to the 
place of excavation when carried by the workmen ; quite nat- 
ural that when pressed by the feet they should pierce and 
loosen the earth ; quite natural that the soil should by the use 
of the proper instruments be removed ; quite natural that the 
river, when the new channel is deep enough and is brought into 
connection with it, should flow in it; — just as natural as if a 
similar change of channel were produced by some remarkable 
natural force or combination of forces. 

But suppose, now, that such a change were to be effected 
miraculously by divine power. How are we to conceive the 
act ? If the alteration of the channel were suddenly produced 
by an earthquake, or a meteorite, or by some other such agency, 
we should still say that the phenomenon, however startling or 
mysterious, is after all a natural, and not a miraculous, event. 
If God is to produce the effect miraculously by means of any 
natural force, he must do it by causing this force to operate 
otherwise than in a natural way. If, for example, an earth- 
quake is made to take place where or when it would not 
take place under the normal and natural working of natural 
forces, why, then the force which intensifies or accelerates the 
operation of the natural agencies cannot itself be a natural 
force ; it must be a supernatural force. And so we gain nothing 



MIRACLES DEFINED. 117 

by the hypothesis that in a miracle natural agencies are made 
use of. If the elements by which the wine w T as produced at 
Cana were miraculously brought together from the surround- 
ing atmosphere, this bringing of them together is just the 
thing to be accounted for. If human ingenuity should succeed 
in inventing a way by which the wine-producing elements 
of earth and air could be suddenly brought together, the 
combination would have to be effected by calling into service 
natural forces. It could not be done by a mere volition. The 
natural forces could be made to operate in a different direction 
from what they would if left to themselves ; but they would 
still be themselves. Their essential nature would not be 
changed. If now the same holds true of God ; if in produc- 
ing a so-called miracle he is absolutely limited to the use and 
manipulation of substances and forces that already belong to the 
system of nature ; if the essence of the miracle consists only in 
a hitherto unobserved combination of forces already operative, — 
then it becomes a puzzling question, by what right any event 
is designated a miracle at all. For the combinations of physi- 
cal forces are constantly varying. Every phenomenon which 
is not exactly a repetition of some other may be said to be the 
result of a new combination of natural forces. Nearly every- 
thing that happens would be miraculous, if the mark of the 
miraculous is novelty. The weather of no one day is exactly 
like that of any other day. The play of motion in the water 
of a cataract is perpetually changing. Every individual tree or 
animal has features of its own, the result of new combinations 
of physical forces. But these peculiarities of individuation are 
by no one called miraculous. Nor are the more rare and start- 
ling phenomena of nature called miraculous, even though they 
are unparalleled and inexplicable. The peculiar hue of the 
western evening sky which began to appear somewhat suddenly 
in the autumn of 1883, and continued for two or three years, 
has never been explained, and perhaps never will be ; but it is 
not pronounced miraculous ; it is assumed that it was the result 
of natural agencies acting according to natural law, although 
beyond the reach of human research. The new phenomena 
which result from the new combinations are supposed to be 



118 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

the necessary effect of physical forces whose nature and mode 
of operation have been eternally prescribed by the Creator. 

Neither newness, nor strangeness, nor inexplicableness, there- 
fore, constitutes an event miraculous. What then is it which 
warrants us in calling any event a miracle ? When we are told 
that miracles are phenomena wrought " by means of the gen- 
eral forces of nature," though not to be explained from them 
alone ; when it is intimated that God, as " the great Geometer 
and Mechanic," so manipulates " the threads of the complex of 
nature " as to bring about an occurrence which is to be dis- 
tinguished from the ordinary ones that can be explained from 
the general forces of nature alone, — we must ask, What is 
that force which modifies the forces of nature so as to bring 
about the exceptional, the miraculous result ? And if it is a 
force of nature not acting according to its own laws, then this 
deviation from its normal course of action must be ascribed to 
a supernatural force ; and this is what constitutes the anoma- 
lous action a miracle. That which produces the deviation can- 
not be itself one of the forces of nature acting according to 
its own laws. Gloatz himself speaks of it as " a newly mani- 
fested causality of God." 1 Plainly it must be such. And if it is 
a newly manifested causality, then it must be an agency distinct 
from the natural action of natural forces ; that is, it must be an 
immediate and supernatural exercise of divine power. 

But may this divine power produce an effect in nature with- 
out making use of natural forces ? Why not ? Human agents 
are indeed obliged to depend on the laws and forces of na- 
ture when they undertake to modify the course of nature. A 
man who lifts a stone does not abolish the force of gravitation, 
nor does he create any new physical force ; but he avails himself 
of natural forces in order to produce a movement which other- 
wise would not take place. But is God limited in the same 
way ? Men can manipulate natural forces ; but they must do 
it by means of the forces of their own physical system, God 
has no physical body whose arms and fingers can be thrust 
in here and there to modify or check the operation of his nat- 
ural forces. Is he then more limited than man ? Could not 
1 Wunder mid Naturgeseiz (in Studien und Kritiken, 1886), p. 543. 



MIRACLES DEFINED. 119 

God cause a stone to rise up from the earth without the use of 
muscles or any other physical instrument ? If it is said that 
he might do this by means of some already existent natural 
force, then we have this dilemma : If the natural force which 
raises the stone operates naturally, say, as when a volcano 
hurls stones upward, then there is no miracle. If, however, 
in order to raise a stone miraculously, some natural force is 
specially diverted from its normal sphere and mode of opera- 
tion, that is, is made to act unnaturally, or super naturally, then 
there comes back the question above raised, What is the force 
which causes this exceptional working of the natural force ? It 
cannot be another natural force working naturally ; and if it is 
another working unnaturally or super naturally, then the ques- 
tion recurs, What is the cause of that exceptional effect ? And 
so we are driven to the absurd assumption of an infinite series 
in order to substantiate a miracle, unless we simply assume 
that God, without the use of a physical force, produces excep- 
tional effects in the physical universe. 

The distinction between absolute and relative miracles is, 
therefore, untenable. Whether actual miracles shall be called 
absolute or relative, is a mere matter of definition. If an ab- 
solute miracle is one which involves the suspension or tem- 
porary abolition of all the laws of nature, then all miracles can 
be only relative ones. But if an absolute miracle is one which 
is produced by a direct exercise of divine power, superadded to 
the forces of nature, then all real miracles are absolute ones. 
With regard to such things as the plagues of Egypt, which 
seem to have been only an intensification of ordinary and 
natural phenomena, if they were miraculous at all, they were 
such by virtue of a special divine power intensifying the opera- 
tion of the natural causes. In other words, the natural forces 
were not left to be controlled by nature. But as soon as we 
make this supposition, we assume a miracle in the strictest 
sense of the word. If the swarms of lice or of flies were 
ordinary as to kind, but only extraordinary as to degree, the 
question to be answered is simply this : Was the exceptional 
character of the plagues purely natural, just as we assume the 
occasional extraordinary prevalence of grasshoppers to be now- 



120 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

a-days ? Or was it caused by a special intervention of divine 
agency for the purpose of producing a special result? One 
can take what view he pleases : one may deny the credibility 
of the narrative ; one may eliminate from it all that seems to 
attest a supernatural agency ; but one cannot do this and at the 
same time properly call the occurrences miraculous. The alter- 
native is sharp and clear: If the forces of nature, operating 
undisturbed by special supernatural intervention, produced those 
plagues, then they were not miracles in any sense. If, on the 
other hand, the peculiar character of the plagues was due to 
a special interposition of divine agency, then a miracle took 
place, in as true and emphatic a sense of the term as if the 
waters of the Nile had suddenly begun to turn back and flow 
up hill towards the south, or as if an entirely new species of 
insects had been created and let loose on the Egyptians. 

In a lax and improper sense the term "miracle " may be applied 
to certain striking occurrences or coincidences, while yet there 
may not be reason to assume a special supernatural intervention. 
If one choose to call such events miracles in a relative sense, no 
harm is done, provided a careful distinction is maintained be- 
tween them and miracles proper. It is obvious, however, that 
the events in question are such as might be called wonderful by 
some, and not at all by others. What are called providential 
events — occurrences which have a striking and important bear- 
ing on the character and life of an individual — become such 
to the individual by virtue of their peculiar relation to his cir- 
cumstances or feelings. To others the events may be in no 
sense remarkable. The peculiarity of the events does not con- 
sist in themselves, — in their relation to divine causation or to 
natural laws, — but in their accidental relation to the individ- 
ual's circumstances. It is manifest that, according to what is 
called the law of chance, such coincidences must be numerous. 
It depends, moreover, wholly on the mood of the individual 
whether the events which he experiences shall be called provi- 
dential or not. Some men, of a lively and impressible tem- 
perament, may find special suggestions and lessons in almost 
everything; others, of a more stolid make-up, find nothing 
specially impressive. To make these subjective impressions 



MIRACLES DEFINED. 121 

constitute the essence of the miraculous (as is done by Kitschl 
and his school), is a caricature of the doctrine of miracles. If 
this is all there is in a miracle, then there are no miracles in 
the genuine sense at all. 

The question of so-called special providences is one respecting 
the philosophy of which there will probably always be doubt 
and diverse opinions. If these providences acquire their special 
significance solely from their accidental relation to individual 
circumstances, and are of themselves as purely the normal 
result of the ordinary forces of nature as anything else that 
happens, then the specialness consists merely in the chance co- 
incidence, and there is nothing in any sense miraculous about 
them. And there is, generally speaking, no just ground for 
assuming any special divine intervention in the case of so- 
called special providences. But there have been some events 
in which the providential lesson seems so striking, and the 
coincidence so improbable, if regarded as purely the result of 
the natural working of ordinary forces, that the hypothesis of 
some kind of special divine arrangement will always seem 
plausible. 

Here belongs also the question of answers to prayer. If 
specific prayers are answered, does the answer involve a mira- 
cle ? Or is there some other way of explaining the facts, yet 
without denying that prayers are veritably answered ? There- 
are at least two admissible suppositions. (1) The universe, 
with all the working of its natural forces, may from eternity 
have been adjusted with reference to the foreknown prayers 
that were to be answered. In this case, the natural operation 
of things brings about the accomplishment of the thing asked 
for. The answer to the prayer is as real as if effected by a 
supernatural and special interruption of the ordinary course 
of nature. The event which constitutes the answer may be 
in itself no more marvellous than many others which occur. 
For example, when Luther prayed for the life of Melanchthon, 
and Melanchthon recovered, though he had seemed to be at the 
point of death, the recovery, though striking, was not more 
remarkable in itself than many others which have taken place 
after all hope of recovery had vanished. The remarkableness 



122 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

consists, in the case specified, only in the coincidence between 
the recovery and the fervent prayer. It cannot be proved that 
any law of nature was disturbed or diverted in its operation; 
but it may be supposed that nature was eternally constituted 
with reference to the accomplishment of the thing to be prayed 
for. Or (2) it may be supposed, as Dr. Chalmers 1 conceived, 
that the answer is effected by a divine influence wrought on 
the invisible and untraceable powers of nature, while yet to 
all visible appearance the uniformity of nature remains undis- 
turbed. " It may be not by an act of intervention among those 
near and visible causes where intervention would be a miracle ; 
it may be by an unseen but not less effectual act of interven- 
tion among the remote and occult causes, that he adapts him- 
self to the various wants and meets the various petitions of his 
children." No one can controvert such a hypothesis; for no 
one is able to trace out the concatenation of causes that result 
in the production of any given event. An answer to prayer 
brought about by such a method would differ from a miracle 
commonly so called only in its not being palpable to human 
senses that an intervention had taken place. It would, how- 
ever, be essentially as miraculous as an intervention occurring 
in some one of " the wonted successions that are known to take 
place." This hypothesis differs from the first one in that it 
represents God as in a sense changeable, constantly modifying 
his activity in accordance with the contingency of human 
volitions and desires. 

Whatever may be thought respecting the method of God's 
providential working with reference to such cases, they differ 
materially from the palpable miracles wrought in connection 
with special revelations of the divine will. The latter must 
be regarded as attributable to a special divine agency distinct 
from the natural forces of the material universe. 

In conclusion, we may remark that, notwithstanding the many 
infelicities and inconsistencies in the definition of miracles, there 
has been, after all, no great diversity in intention and in fact. 
A miracle has by Christian thinkers been generally regarded as a 

1 In a sermon on The Efficacy of Trayer consistent with the Uniformity of 
Nature. 



MIRACLES DEFINED. 123 

work wrought by special supernatural intervention, and serving 
to attest the reality of a divine revelation. 

But this starts another question which requires to be con- 
sidered : What is the use of miracles ? Have they any 
evidential value? 



124 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIEACLES. 

NO thoughtful man can ever have any interest in trying to 
prove the fact of miracles, unless he antecedently assumes 
that miracles are useful and needful. And the common opinion 
concerning their use has been that miraculous works have served 
to attest the divine commission of men (and especially of Jesus 
Christ) who have professed to be the organs of a revelation 
from God. The argument, briefly stated, is this : The mere 
profession which a man might make, that he is a special mes- 
senger of divine truth, would be of itself no sufficient proof 
that he is such. Men may make false pretensions ; they may 
aim to deceive others, or may even deceive themselves. 1 As a 
safeguard against such deceptions, and as essential to a full 
proof of the reality of a special revelation of the divine mind, 
there is need of some palpable mark of divine attestation. 2 An 
inward inspiration may be sufficient to convince the messenger 
himself that he has been charged with a special message; but 
this inward experience cannot of itself serve to others as a 
proof of one's divine commission ; for they can know of it 
only as he affirms it; and knowing the possibility of inten- 
tional or unintentional deception, and considering the general 
presumption against the truth of any such affirmation, they 
must regard his mere assertion as no sufficient proof of the 
truth of the thing affirmed. If, however, his assertion is ac- 
companied by the exertion of supernatural power, they have 
the additional evidence needed that God himself has accredited 
him as a special messenger. 

The argument presupposes belief in the existence of a God 
— a personal God — and a personal God disposed and able to 

1 Cf. Dorner, Christian Doctrine, § 55. 

2 Cf. Pres. J. H. Seelye, on Miracles (in Boston Lectures, 1870, pp. 207 
sqq.). . 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIKACLES. 125 

make himself known by means of a special revelation. A 
miracle cannot demonstrate the existence of God to an atheist. 
To him any strange or exceptional occurrence can only be what 
the tricks of the juggler or hisus naturce are to all men, — sim- 
ply observed facts, which are presumed to be produced by some 
force of nature, however unknown or rarely operative. 1 

It is scarcely less clear that miracles can have evidential 
force only to one who assumes the need and antecedent proba- 
bility of a divine revelation. Even a theist — especially if 
pantheistically or deistically inclined — may hold that there is 
no need of any special self-manifestation of God ; that nature 
and the human intuitions afford a sufficient disclosure of the 
divine nature and will. Whoever so thinks cannot believe in 
miracles ; for to believe in them would imply to him that God 
acts irregularly for no worthy purpose ; that he acts capriciously ; 
that he acts, as it were, the part of a juggler. To him, as to 
the pure atheist, strange and inexplicable events would be sim- 
ply strange and inexplicable, as many things are and must be 
to all men. They could not prove to him that the man 
through whom they seem to be wrought is a prophet bearing 
a revelation. 

If, nevertheless, men professing atheistic views have sometimes 
been led by the evidence of miracles to a belief in God and 
revelation, it must have been because they were not thorough 
and radical in their disbelief, but had tendencies and suscep- 
tibilities of which they may themselves scarcely have been 
conscious, and which prepared them to welcome the evidence 
that God had indeed made his existence and his will manifest. 

Apart, however, from men of this class the evidential value 
of miracles is denied or questioned by many who are not 

1 " Considered by itself, it [a miracle] is at most but the token of a super- 
human being. Hence, though an additional instance, it is not a distinct species 
of evidence for a Creator from that contained in the general marks of order 
and design in the universe. A proof drawn from an interruption in the course 
of nature is in the same line of argument as one deduced from the existence 
of that course, and in point of cogency is inferior to it. . . . A miracle is no 
argument to one who is deliberately, and on principle, an atheist." — J. H. 
Newman, Two Essays on Miracles, pp. 10, 11, 2d ed. Cf. Warington, Can 
we believe in Miracles ? p. 219. 

• 



126 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

only theists, but professed Christians. The doubt takes some- 
what this form : At the best a miracle is an event which re- 
quires peculiarly strong evidence before its own reality can be 
accepted. But even if the fact of one is made probable, still it 
is nothing in itself but an outward physical phenomenon ; it 
may, for aught we know, and as seems indeed to be affirmed in 
the Bible, be wrought by demoniacal as well as by divine 
power. The mere fact of a miracle, therefore, at the best 
proves nothing more than the exercise of an extraordinary or 
superhuman power; it does not prove that the worker com- 
municates divine and infallible truth. We must know about 
the character and doctrines of the miracle-worker, before we 
can commit ourselves implicitly to him. We must trust 
him, before we can trust his miracles. It being easy to pro- 
duce the appearance of something miraculous without the re- 
ality of it, we may properly doubt the genuineness of the 
miracles so long as we have no assurance of the trustworthiness 
of the person. Consequently the miracles, even if proved, do 
no good ; for they are proved genuine only as we presuppose 
the trustworthiness of the man who professes to work them ; 
but if this trustworthiness is assumed, then the miracles are 
not needed. The doctrine proves the miracle, not the miracle 
the doctrine. Miracles are, therefore, useless if real; but be- 
ing useless, they are presumptively not real. 

Many strenuous defenders of the reality of miracles, how- 
ever, assume, though in a modified form, an attitude of doubt 
concerning the evidential value of miracles. 1 In its least 
objectionable form it is to be found in such men as Arch- 
bishop Trench, who says : 2 " A miracle does not prove 

1 Vide, e. g., Kostlin, Die Frage fiber das W under, in the Jahrbiicher fur 
deutsche Theologie, 1864. ' f TTho would hope," he says (p. 206), "in dealing 
with the unbelief of the present day, which rejects the fundamental truths of 
the Bible respecting the living God and Christ the Redeemer, to be able first 
to bring the unbeliever to a conviction of the historical reality of the story of 
the Bible miracles, and thence to lead him on to accept those fundamental 
truths ? " Cf. James Freeman Clarke, Orthodoxy, its Truths and Errors, pp. 68 
sqq. Bishop Lightfoot {Christianity in Relation to Skepticism, Report of the 



2 Notes on Miracles, p. 27, ed. 13. 

* 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 127 

the truth of a doctrine, or the divine mission of him that 
brings it to pass . . . The doctrine must first commend it- 
self to the conscience as being good, and only then can the 
miracle seal it as diviner Later, however, when he takes up 
more particularly the evidential worth of miracles, he says : 1 
" Are then, it may be asked, the miracles to occupy no place at 
all in the array of proofs for the certainty of the things which 
we have believed ? So far from this, a most important place. 
Our loss would be irreparable, if they were absent from our 
sacred history." He then goes on to say of Christ's miracles 
that they are not, what Lessing would have them, a part of the 
scaffolding of revelation. " They are rather," he says, " a con- 
stitutive element of the revelation of God in Christ. We could 
not conceive of Him as not doing such works." This concep- 
tion of the miraculous in Christianity is a common one at 
present among theological and apologetic writers. Thomas 
Arnold of Kugby, comparing the Biblical miracles with those 
alleged to have occurred in modern times, says 2 that " miracles 
were but the natural accompaniments, if I may so speak, of the 
Christian revelation ; accompaniments, the absence of which 
would have been far more wonderful than their presence. This, 
as I may almost call it, this a priori probability in favor of the 
miracles of the Gospel cannot be said to exist in favor of those 
of later history." And later on he says : 3 " Miracles must not 

Church Congress held in Nottingham, 1871, p. 78), regards the evidence from 
miracles as varying according to the intellectual characteristics of different 
ages. At first, he says, they were of subordinate use because the miraculous 
and even the magical were too readily believed. Afterwards when the idea of 
regular sequence became current, the evidence from miracles was forcible ; 
" but as the idea of law still further prevails, and prevailing overpowers the 
mind, from being a special evidence they become a special objection, themselves 
needing extraordinary testimony to establish their truth." 

1 Notes on Miracles, pp. 99, 100. 

2 Lectures on Modern History, p. 133. Cf. Dorner, System of Christian 
Doctrine, vol. ii. p. 182 ; G. P. Fisher, Supernatural Origin of Christianity, 
p. 509 ; Alexander Mair, Studies in the Christian Evidences, p. 192. 

8 Ibid., p. 137. Similarly, S. T. Coleridge, The Friend, vol. ii. p. 142, H. 
N. Coleridge's ed. So F. D. Maurice, Kingdom of Christ, vol. ii. p. 209, 3d 
ed. " Either the strange stories spoken of are in accordance with the Scrip- 
tural idea of the Founder of a spiritual and universal kingdom, or they are not. 



128 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

be allowed to overrule the Gospel ; for it is only through our 
belief in the Gospel that we accord our belief to them." But 
Baden Powell goes considerably farther when, after a discus- 
sion of this question, he concludes : " If miracles were, in the 
estimation of a former age, among the chief supports of Christi- 
anity, they are at present among the main difficulties and 
hinderances to its acceptance." 1 

The question before us may be put in this form : Is the de- 
cisive evidence for Christianity independent of the alleged mir- 
acles, so that one may be a good Christian with or without 
faith in the miracles ? Or, vice versa, does faith in Christian- 
ity depend on antecedent faith in the reality of the miracles? 
Or, finally, shall we adopt a middle course, and say, with Pascal, 
that the miracles prove the doctrine, and the doctrine proves 
the miracles ? 

I. Is then faith in miracles a matter of indifference ? It can- 
not be questioned that nowadays there is in many, even sin- 
cerely Christian, minds a strong tendency to take this view. 
The intrinsic improbability of supernatural occurrences; the 
great number of spurious or doubtful miracles ; the problem pre- 
sented by the swarm of pretended, and often well-attested, 
ecclesiastical miracles ; 2 the absence of any necessary connec- 

If they are not, no evidence whatever could establish the authenticity of the 
document containing them ; for they would be self-contradictory ; we should 
be bound to reject them because we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 
On the other hand, if they are, we should require evidence to account for their 
omission in any record professing to contain the history of such a person." 

1 Essays and Reviews, p. 158 (New York, 1874). Cf. Sterling, Essays and 
Tales, vol. ii. p. 121 ; Renan, Life of Jesus, p. 189. "If ever the worship of 
Jesus loses its hold upon mankind, it will be precisely on account of those 
acts which originally inspired belief in him." 

2 Such as Constantine's vision, the Port Royal miracles, and the modern in- 
stances of alleged miraculous healing in answer to prayer. Vide J. H. 
Newman's Two Essays, essay ii., who defends the genuineness of ecclesi- 
astical miracles (though the book was written before he became a Romanist), 
and G. P. Pisher, Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief, chap, x., who 
takes the opposite ground. Tholuck, TJeber die Wunder der katholischen Kirche 
(Part I. of his Vermischte Schriften), favors the notion of a gradual disap- 
pearance of the apostolic charismata. Christlieb, Modern Doubt and Christian 
Belief, pp. 330 sqq., takes the ground that miracles do occur nowadays, 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 129 

tion between physical marvels and spiritual truth, — all this 
prepossesses the mind against miracles in general. And if, 
nevertheless, the fact of their occurrence is admitted on the 
strength of Biblical testimony, the admission is a reluctant one. 
It is this state of mind which has given rise to the judgment 
frequently expressed, that nowadays Christianity is believed in, 
not because of, but in spite of, the miracles. 1 The spiritual as- 
pects of Christianity are held to be the thing of chief concern ; 
and it is felt to be a burden rather than a help to have to ac- 
cept, along with the moral and religious teachings of the Bible, 
all those stories of marvelous occurrences for which there 
seems to have been no occasion, and which now expose Chris- 
tianity to the ridicule of naturalists. 

We may here distinguish three classes. First, there are those 
whose disinclination to believe in miracles amounts to virtual, 
or even avowed, disbelief, while still they profess to hold to 
all that is essential in Christianity. This class is represented 
by such men as Pfleiderer and Lipsius in Germany, Matthew 
Arnold, W. K. Greg, and E. A. Abbott in England. 2 

Another class may be called agnostics as regards miracles. 
They would leave it an open question what miracles are, and 
whether they really occurred in the sense commonly attached 
to them. The use of them is often declared to have been con- 
fined to the time of their occurrence, so that to us of the present 
day it is of no practical importance to believe in them, or to hold 
any definite theory concerning them. In this class, though by 
no means all taking precisely the same ground, are to be 

especially on mission gronnd. So Bushnell, Nature and the Supernatural, 
chap. xiv. 

1 A terse form of expression, perhaps derived originally from J. J. Rous- 
seau, who in his Letters from the Mountains (letter III., vol. ix. p. 77, of his 
works, Edinburgh, 1774), says, " I know not well what these our fashionable 
good Christians think in their hearts ; but if they believe in Christ on account 
of his miracles, I, for my part, believe in him in spite of his miracles." 

2 0. Pfleiderer, Religionsphilosophie, 2d ed. R. A. Lipsius, Lehrbuch der 
evangelisch-protestantischen Dogmatik. Matthew Arnold, Literature and 
Dogma. W. R. Greg, The Creed of Christendom. E. A. Abbott, The Kernel 
and the Husk, Philochristus. (The authorship of these two last mentioned 
works, though they are published as anonymous, is an open secret.) 

9 



130 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

reckoned such men as Ritschl and his school in Germany, 
Baden Powell and J. R. Seeley in England, Athanase J. Co- 
querel and F. Pecaut in France, 1 and F. H. Hedge in the 
United States. 2 

Thirdly, there are those who accept the fact of the miracles 
unreservedly, but do so simply because their general faith in 
the Christian religion seems to necessitate it. 

The modern rationalistic school in Germany (Pfleiderer, 
Lipsius, Biederinann, etc.) and the Ritschl school are strenu- 
ously opposed to each other; but respecting miracles they 
come by a different process to a similar result. The ration- 
alists, who believe in the value of metaphysical specula- 
tion, question or reject miracles because of the philosophical 
difficulties they involve. The Ritschlites, who repudiate meta- 
physics, ignore or subordinate the question of miracles because 
the definition and discussion of them lead to metaphysical sub- 
tleties. Both agree that they constitute no important part, if in- 
deed any part, of real Christianity. Both agree in reducing the 
supernatural either to a minimum or to a nonentity. The two 
schools, in their several wings, even overlap one another in this 
respect. Rationalists, like Keim, admit the reality of Christ's 
resurrection, 3 while Ritschlites, like Bender, question or deny it. 

1 Baden Powell, The Order of Nature, Study of the Evidences of Christian- 
ity (in Essays and Reviews). J. R. Seeley, Natural Religion. In his Ecce 
Homo he was less skeptical. A. J. Coquerel, Quelle etait la Religion de Jesus ? 
In the sixth of these discourses, Coquerel says (p. 42) : "Be Christians, and 
believe in miracles, if you find them real and if they are useful to yon. Be 
Christians without the miracles, if they bring the least obstacle, the least 
shadow, to your piety and your faith. But be Christians." Pelix Pecaut, Le 
Christ et la Conscience (1859), p. 416, "The question of miracles is very 
obscure; ... I do not pretend to judge it definitively." In his later work, 
Le Christianisme Liberal et le Miracle (1869), he seems to be more pronounced 
in the rejection of all miracles. 

2 F. H. Hedge, The Mythical Element in the New Testament (one of the 
essays in Christianity and Modem Thought, Boston, 1873), Reason in Religion 
(Boston, IS67). 

3 Geschichte Jesu, 2d ed. pp. 358 sqq., Geschichte Jesu von Nazara, vol. hi. 
pp. 600 sqq. Keim does not indeed distinctly call the resurrection (or rather 
the reappearance) of Jesus supernatural, but he rejects emphatically the ordi- 
nary "natural" explanations. Professor Bender, though disowned by Ritschl 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 131 

There is something plausible and insinuating in the agnostic 
ground which is taken respecting the supernatural in its rela- 
tion to Christianity. It professes to exalt the spiritual and 
vital elements as contrasted with what is simply external, 
physical, and accidental. Standing on this ground one can say : 
The origin of Christianity lies so far back that it is impossible to 
learn with certainty the exact character of the phenomena which 
accompanied its introduction. The miracles may have been dif- 
ferent in fact from what they are made to appear in the narra- 
tives as transmitted to us. At all events, without troubling 
ourselves to prove or disprove the fact of miracles, or even to 
define what they are, we do most wisely to leave this whole 
domain undefined, especially as the essence of Christianity is 
something entirely different from these outward phenomena. 
We cannot but recognize Christianity as a beneficent institution ; 
but whether there was anything supernatural in Jesus or in his 
disciples, it is immaterial to know. The facts of history prove 
the superiority of the Christian religion to all others. That 
which is moral and spiritual in it is impregnable by virtue of 
its own intrinsic merit. Why should we weaken our position 
by making the validity of the claims of the Gospel depend on 
the validity of the argument for miracles, and thus run the 
risk of losing the main good in trying to rescue what at the 
best is a mere accessory ? Whatever may have been the origi- 
nal fact, even though we may suppose that the miracles served 
a useful purpose at the outset, they are too remote and obscure 
to serve such a purpose any longer. 1 

now, was one of his disciples, aud has only carried out to the extreme the les- 
sons which he learned. 

1 Says Lessing, Theol. Streitschriften {Ueber den Beweis des Geistes und 
der Kraft), " If I had seen him [Jesus] work miracles, and had had no reason 
to doubt that they were true miracles, I should certainly have felt so much 
confidence in the miracle- worker that I should willingly have yielded my un- 
derstanding to his, and should have believed him in everything in so far as 
experiences just as indubitable were not opposed to him." And Schleier- 
macher {Der christliche Glaube, vol. ii. p. 125, 5th ed.) says, " Though the 
true acknowledgment of Christ in individual cases may have been occasioned 
by miracles, . . . they must be, with reference to our faith, wholly super- 
fluous." Essentially the same view is found in G. H. Curteis's Scientific 
Obstacles to Christian Belief, pp. 81-88. 



132 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

Plausible as this may sound, it is not difficult to show its 
essential inconsistency with a genuine faith in Christianity. 
Not but that one who takes this position may be a real Chris- 
tian. But it is a position intrinsically self-contradictory, and 
logically tends to a positive rejection of the distinctive claims 
of Christianity. For, 

1. This view of miracles conflicts with a sincere faith in 
Christianity as being a special revelation. The term " revela- 
tion " is indeed freely used by thinkers of this class. But the 
meaning which it has always borne in theological use is dis- 
carded. It has always carried with it the idea of a special, 
historical, supernatural communication. But writers belong- 
ing to the first class above mentioned now use the term quite 
differently. Keligion is defined as correlative to revelation. 
As Lipsius puts it, " The divine factor in the religious relation, 
or God's relation to the human spirit, is revelation ; the human 
factor, or man's relation to God, is religion." 1 In other words, 
wherever there is religion there is revelation. Of course " rev- 
elation " here entirely loses its traditional sense of something 
special, and is made to denote a universal and constant thing. 

The right to use old terms in a new or modified sense need 
not be contested, especially if the deviation is distinctly recog- 
nized and stated. But where the deviation is great and radical, 
there should be some urgent reason for using the old term 
rather than some other whose current meaning would better 
express the sense intended. Otherwise a suspicion can hardly 
be suppressed, that the design is to avoid opprobrium by using 
words which sound orthodox, but which are used in a radically 
different sense from the ordinary one. 

These writers profess to discard the older rationalism, and 
even repudiate the name " rationalist; " and it is one character- 
istic of their deviation from the older rationalism, that they 
emphasize this divine revelation made to all mankind. But 
the difference is in words more than in fact. The older ration- 
alists emphasized the authority of the individual reason as the 
ultimate source and arbiter of religious truth. The modern 
rationalists emphasize the reality of a reciprocal relation between 

1 Dogma tik, § 52. 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 133 

God and man. The former, in their fear of supernaturalism, 
tended to hold that no individuals ever were the recipients of 
special divine influences ; the latter, in their fear of supernatu- 
ralism, are careful to insist that all individuals are more or less 
the recipients of divine influences. But practically the upshot 
is the same in the two cases. According to the older rational- 
ists, what men naturally came to believe by the use of their 
own reason they came to believe by virtue of the reason which 
God had implanted in them. Indirectly, if not directly, God 
could be said to have communicated himself to men, having 
given them a reason by which they could find him out. The 
modern rationalists have less to say about reason, and more 
about the religious impulse or instinct. But when they tell us 
that wherever this religious impulse is there is a divine revela- 
tion, it is manifest that the thing meant is little else than what 
the older rationalists would have assented to. Inasmuch as all 
miraculous, exceptional divine influences are denied or ignored, 
the operations of the mind are conceived as the operations of 
physical nature are conceived, namely, as under the universal 
all-controlling influence of the divine presence. The older, 
deistic conception of an absentee God is avoided ; there is more 
of a leaning towards the pantheistic notion of an everpresent 
power. But in the last analysis the self-manifestation of God 
is in this case plainly nothing but what the human beings by 
virtue of their natural constitution come to think about God. 
The only difference between this and the older representation is 
that the conviction which arises concerning: a divine being is 
here represented as a recognition of a present God, who is the 
efficient cause of all things ; whereas the other view made God 
to be farther off, and less immediately concerned with human 
affairs. In neither case is the self-revelation of God an ob- 
jective one ; in neither case an exceptional or supernatural one. 
In both cases the human judgment, such as it is, must decide 
for itself what religious truth and duty are. In neither case is 
man supposed to be conscious of anything but his own concep- 
tion of divine things. Pfleiderer 1 says, " Everywhere, where 
any healthy religious impulse, however primitive and childlike, 

1 Religionsphilosophie, vol. ii. p. 433. 



134 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

expresses itself, there takes place also in some degree a revela- 
tion of the divine love which aims at a fellowship of love." The 
revelation, then, consists in the religious impulse ; but the im- 
pulse must be a " healthy " one. And who is to determine when 
the impulse is healthy ? Apparently the philosopher himself, 
who first gives his definition of religion, and then calls a reli- 
gious impulse healthy, according as it conforms to his definition 
of religion. Another philosopher, with a different conception of 
the essence of religion, will find either more or less of healthy 
religious impulses than Pfleiderer. This theologian himself re- 
gards Jesus of Nazareth as having possessed this impulse in the 
highest perfection. He ascribes to him an " innate genius " for 
religion. This genius, he says, " has for human eyes always 
something of impenetrable mystery." 1 Yet Jesus' religious 
development, " always under the assumption of this inborn 
genius," he says, is explicable : " The impressions of a pious 
parentage, of a cheerful population, and of beautiful scenery," 
and an early acquaintance with the words of the prophets, — 
these were " very favorable circumstances for the development 
of the religious genius." 2 Still, inasmuch as many others, cer- 
tainly Jesus' own brothers, had a like advantage, these outward 
circumstances cannot alone account for his unique distinction ; 
therefore the assumption of special "genius" must be made. 
His " pure heart," more than any other, was attuned to the 
thought of God as Father. The thought was not strictly new 
with him. He had learned it from the prophets, at least in its 
essence. But he seized it, and developed it as the central truth, 
and made it the centre of his own religious experience. And 
having become penetrated with this idea, he naturally felt de- 
sirous to impart to others what he had experienced in himself. 
Hence he began to preach, and had such success that he gradu- 
ally came to think that he, and no other, was called to be the 
Messiah of his people. 3 

Now let us consider this conception. For this is a fair 
presentation of the anti-supernaturalistic view from one of the 
ablest, clearest, and most reverent of the modern representatives 

1 Religionsphilosophie, vol. ii. pp. 186, 187. 2 Ibid. 

8 Ibid., pp. 191, 192. 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 135 

of that school. Pfleiderer claims to exhibit the real essence of 
pure Christianity. According to him, then, revelation is the 
conception of God and of spiritual truth which God gives to 
every man who has a healthy religious impulse. By and in 
the religious impulse the revelation comes. So far as conscious- 
ness goes, for all practical purposes, the impulse, the religious 
impressions, which spring up in the soul constitute the revela- 
tion. The case is precisely parallel to that of any other class 
of conceptions which are found in the human mind. Thoughts 
about natural phenomena, about social life and political institu- 
tions, about psychological, metaphysical, or moral principles, — all 
these, at least in so far as they are " healthy," must be divinely 
revealed ■ for they come from the mental impulses which God 
has implanted, and come in precisely the same way as the 
thoughts concerning God. The only difference is the difference 
in the object to which the thoughts relate. Consequently Jesus 
was a revealer of truth only in the same sense in which Plato, 
Shakspeare, and Newton, each in his several sphere, were re- 
vealers. They, and such as they, had an "innate genius," 
through which they were enabled to evolve more truth than 
ordinary men. Abraham, Isaiah, and Jesus were gifted in the 
direction of religious truth; they had a religious genius. In 
the case of Jesus, we are told, there was even something of 
"impenetrable mystery" about his religious genius. How 
much we are to understand by this is itself somewhat mys- 
terious. There is a mystery about any genius. Why one 
child in a family should be born with a special talent so that 
he becomes renowned through his brilliant utterances or won- 
derful discoveries, while his brothers remain insignificant and 
unknown, — this, too, is an impenetrable mystery ; but it is an 
indisputable fact. When, therefore, Jesus' extraordinary re- 
ligious genius is called mysterious, nothing more can be meant 
than that it was extraordinary, at least for his time and sur- 
roundings. But the question still remains to be answered, 
How can Christ's life be regarded as a revelation ? In the 
vague sense, that everything in nature and human history 
reveals God, that is, in the wide and loose sense of the word 
"revelation," one may, of course, speak of Christ as making 



136 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

a revelation. But in no special and peculiar sense can the 
term be applied to him merely on the ground of any assumed 
moral excellence. The law of God is revealed by disobedience 
to it as well as by obedience to it ; but in either case there is 
no revelation in the distinctive sense. The law must be known 
before obedience can be rendered, so that not even the divine 
law is revealed by a holy life, to say nothing of the further 
matters of God's character, his relations to a sinful world, his 
plans and purposes of mercy or of judgment. To speak, there- 
fore, of Jesus as revealing the divine love, so long as the revela- 
tion is conceived as coming from his moral integrity, is to use 
words without any clear meaning. 

Manifestly the term " revelation " is a misnomer, as applied 
to such a conception of the origin of religious belief. With 
the same propriety all opinions and feelings — at least, all 
" healthy " ones — may be called revelations ; and there is no 
reason, unless a disingenuous one, why the term " revelation " 
should be so diligently used concerning the religious sentiments, 
and not used concerning other things. No usus loquendi is 
more familiar than the distinction between natural and re- 
vealed religion. But the theory under consideration virtually 
calls all natural religion revealed. 1 The distinction is simply 
destroyed by denying the reality of revealed religion as dis- 
tinguished from natural, though the name is retained as a 
synonym of natural. One may be pardoned for suspecting 
that the reason why only religious opinions and feelings are 
called revelations is that the traditional view has regarded 
religious truth as having been really, that is, supernaturally, 
revealed, and that the representatives of this naturalistic view 
of religion are unwilling to give up the appearance and sound 
of a religious creed which they have given up in fact. 2 What- 

1 Matthew Arnold {Literature and Dogma, 5th ed., p. 51) says plainly, 
" That in us which is really natural is, in truth, revealed. ... If we are little 
concerned about it, we say it is natural ; if much, we say it is revealed" 
How simple ! 

2 An interesting commentary on this attitude of modern rationalists is to 
be found in Rohr's Briefe uber den Rationalismus, p. 21, where he speaks of 
an untenable distinction between " mediate and immediate revelation." While 
declaring that revelation (in which he himself does not believe at all) is prop- 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 137 

ever may be the truth on this point, it is certainly a fact that 
according to the view under consideration revelation is the 
prerogative of all men ; it belongs to no one man. and to no 
class of men, exclusively, though some may have a larger share 
in it than others. The difference is like the difference in mental 
endowments in general ; all have a portion, but not all the same 
degree of it. 

Moreover, how are we to know what and how much rev- 
elation is imparted by different men? Evidently through 
the same religious faculty which itself is the source of the 
revelation. We can call only that a true revelation which 
commends itself to our judgment. But the power to sit in 
judgment on the revelatory character of other men implies 
that each must regard himself as the ultimate authority, since 
all are revealers in the same sense. We may admit others to 
have had more religious genius than ourselves, but how far 
their impulses were healthy we must each decide for ourselves ; 
and this decision is a part, and to us an all-important part, 
of the religious revelation of the world. In short, according to 
the theory under consideration, there is no really authoritative 
revelation ; every man is ultimately a law to himself ; and 
" revelation " is only a name to cover up the negation of all 
revelation in the only honest sense of that term. 

This is made all the clearer when we observe that just this 
class of thinkers recognize and emphasize the gradual de- 
velopment of religious knowledge and sentiment. But this 
makes their use of the term " revelation " doubly reprehen- 
sible. They speak of revelation as a universal prerogative 
of mankind, in so far as men are religious. Yet they also lay 
stress on the fact that religious beliefs are transmitted from 
one generation to another. Now how are these two proposi- 
tions to be adjusted to each other ? It is an obvious fact that 

erly only immediate, he says, that "this distinction served a good purpose, 
being, as it were, the protecting segis, under which in modern times rational- 
ism developed itself, — an innocent-appearing middle term, which concealed 
the complete divergence of rationalism from supernatnralism, until the weak 
eye accustomed itself to the clearer light." It would seem as if history were 
going to repeat itself, only that now the term "mediate" is less current. 



138 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

religion is in reality mostly a matter of tradition. What a 
man believes is not the product of his own independent think- 
ing or instincts, but rather of the communications which have 
come to him from other men. Undoubtedly we may properly 
speak of the religious impulse ; but it would be a gross misrep- 
resentation of obvious facts to speak as if each individual were 
in any important degree the author or source of his own re- 
ligion. It is true, the individual cannot in the strictest sense 
make a belief his own without an independent act. But in 
most cases this independent act is nothing but a mere adoption, 
on trust, of what others recommend ; there is no intelligent and 
independent testing of the doctrine. And even when there 
seems to be independent thought, and a man breaks away from 
his immediate surroundings, and repudiates the teachings which 
he has received, still in no case does this take place wholly 
without the influence of other minds. A certain contingent 
must indeed be contributed by the individual. The gradual in- 
crease of knowledge and the widening of human thought would 
be impossible, if nothing sprang up in any mind which had not, 
in just the same form, come from some other mind. But the 
originality itself is developed only through the stimulus given 
by others, and is an elaboration and modification of the ideas 
which have been communicated, rather than an origination of 
new ones. The general fact remains, that the bulk of what is 
known and believed is a contribution from others and is ac- 
cepted almost implicitly. It therefore grossly exaggerates the 
importance of individual reflection to speak of all men as hav- 
ing, each for himself, a divine revelation. Aside from the inaccu- 
racy of the word used, as applied to the religious cogitations or 
feelings of ordinary individuals, an utterly wrong impression 
is made as to the origin of the religious thoughts themselves. 
They are not only no revelations from God in the proper sense 
of that term, but they are not thoughts which the individual 
has evolved independently out of his own mind. They are 
simply a commonwealth of sentiments which he inherits and 
which he shares with his fellows. 

Now the doctrine in question really admits this, in that it 
lays stress on the necessity of a progressive development. Even 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 139 

Jesus' religious impressions are declared not to be strictly 
original; he received the substance of his doctrines, we are 
told, from the Hebrew prophets. Much more, then, must it be 
said of ordinary men, that the revelation which they receive is 
after all only the knowledge, or the notions, which they derive 
from their elders. But in so far as this is admitted, of course the 
notion of " revelation " even in the loose sense which this school 
gives to it, fades away into something akin to nonsense. The 
term can at the best, on this view of things, be applicable only 
to the new contributions which certain gifted individuals make 
to the religious knowledge or sentiments of the world. But 
this cannot be reconciled with that other statement, that wher- 
ever there is a healthy religious impulse there is a revelation, or 
with the still more sweeping statement, that religion and revela- 
tion are reciprocal terms, the one being as universal as the other. 
In short, there is an irreconcilable inconsistency in the use of 
the term " revelation," clearly betraying the fact that the real 
thing ordinarily and properly meant by it is not believed in. 

2. The negative or agnostic attitude towards miracles leads 
to self-contradiction and confusion in the views concerning the 
uniqueness and authority of Jesus Christ. The special relation 
of Christ to revelation is left undetermined. In deference to 
naturalism it is assumed that he could have been nothing 
but a man, that he must have been begotten like other men, 
and that in his intellectual and moral life he must have been 
subject to the same laws of development as other men. But 
in deference to supernaturalism it is asserted that he was a 
unique man, that he attained a degree of moral excellence 
absolutely perfect, or at least so exceptionally exalted as to 
amount practically to a state of perfection. But how this 
uniqueness is to be conceived or accounted for is not stated. 
As being simply a man among the millions of men, he must 
on this theory be regarded as not having been radically different 
from others. The most that can be assumed concerning him 
is that he had a superior genius in the direction of religion ; 
that he had a clearer view and a deeper feeling of certain truths 
than others had ; that he had the disposition and ability to set 
forth ethical and religious truth with peculiar force ; and that 



140 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

in his life he illustrated perfectly his own doctrines and pre- 
cepts. But if Jesus Christ is declared to be absolutely unique ; 
if it is said that he can have no superior and no rival ; if he is 
recognized as sustaining a permanent relation to all men who 
seek to hold fellowship with God, — why, then there must be 
some reason for such affirmations. But the reasons seem to be 
purely arbitrary on the naturalistic basis under consideration. 
If it is affirmed that Christ attained absolute perfection, the 
question at once arises, on what ground this is assumed. 

Now the rationalistic theory is essentially an evolutionary 
one. Progress, according to it, must be successive and contin- 
uous, each new step being an outgrowth of the past and the 
necessary condition of a further advance in the future. It is a 
violation of this principle to assume that Jesus in any sense 
completed the revelation of God or the development of religious 
truth, — to assume that he revealed what can in any proper 
sense be termed the absolute or final religion. Such an as- 
sumption strikes the fundamental principle of the anti-super- 
naturalists directly in the face ; and it is only a subterfuge to 
attempt to hide the inconsistency under the vague phrase 
" mysteriousness," as characterizing Jesus' peculiar excellence. 
The mysteriousness may be ever so truly a fact ; but to say 
that Jesus' character is mysterious does not account for his ex- 
ceptional superiority ; it only asserts it. And the question 
comes back : On what ground is this uniqueness assumed to be 
a fact ? No metaphysical or physical principles or theories 
throw any light on the matter. No a priori considerations are 
adequate to make it appear that Jesus of Nazareth must have 
been worthy to found the universal religion. If one assumes 
such a uniqueness on Jesus' part, unless he does so without 
any reasons, in pure caprice, he must depend on historical evi- 
dence. And this involves, directly or indirectly, a judgment 
respecting the trustworthiness of the evangelical portraiture of 
Jesus' character and life. In reality whoever accepts Christ as 
an authoritative or unique leader does so primarily on the 
ground of traditional belief. This conception of Christ is 
handed down to him, and is first adopted on trust. And when 
he undertakes to examine and justify the belief, he can do no 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 141 

more than analyze the grounds on which others before him 
have cherished it. And this leads necessarily to a considera- 
tion of the grounds on which in the first place this belief gained 
currency. And such an examination can have no other result 
than the assurance that the original belief was founded on a 
conviction that Jesus, in his person and works, was supernatur- 
ally endowed. Pfleiderer himself goes even so far as to affirm 
that, on account of the superstitions of those times, Christianity, 
or any new religion, " could hardly have made its entrance into 
the world " without the belief that it was accredited by miracu- 
lous events. 1 There could be no more emphatic admission that 
Christ did in fact gain his unique power through the impression 
he made of being supernaturally endowed and commissioned. 
This is certainly the testimony of the only original witnesses 
and confessors. If this impression is pronounced a mistaken 
one, the unique greatness of Christ can now be still held only 
by a purely arbitrary act of faith resting ultimately on no valid 
ground whatever. 

But the unique spirituality of Jesus is not the only peculiar 
feature in him belief in which requires to be justified. Still 
more striking is the fact that he assumed an altogether unique 
authority over men. And historic Christianity has always 
recognized this authority. Christ, according to all the records 
and traditions, appears to have assumed to be, in an altogether 
unique sense, the Son of God, and divinely commissioned to 
establish a kingdom of God in the world, of which he was 
himself to be the Head, entitled to issue commands and to 
exercise authority as the King over the church which was to 
be gathered together in his name. 

1 Religionsphilosophie, p. 437- Similarly Mr. Greg, after arguing that the 
resurrection of Jesus did not really take place, says : " It seems to us certain 
that the Apostles believed in the resurrection of Jesus with absolute conviction. 
Nothing short of such a belief could have sustained them through what they 
had to endure, or given them enthusiasm for what they had to do." Creed 
of Christendom, vol. ii. p. 154. Matthew Arnold {God and the Bible, p. 182, 
popular edition) has to come to the same conclusion: "Only in this way, 
through profound misapprehension, through many crude hopes, under the 
stimulus of many illusions, could the method and secret, and something of the 
temper and sweet reason and balance, of Jesus be carried to the world." 



142 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

Now the attempts made to present these things philosoph- 
ically may not always have been successful. Metaphysical 
subtlety may have undertaken more than was possible to be 
accomplished by way of setting forth the nature of Christ and 
the mode of the incarnation. But however inadequate these 
attempts may have been, it is even more certain that it is still 
less satisfactory to rest on a theory which simply ignores the 
essential problem to be solved. That problem is found in the 
question which the Jews themselves put to Jesus, "By what 
authority doest thou these things, and who gave thee this 
authority ? " Even if one could be satisfied to believe that in 
some mysterious manner Jesus attained an altogether unex- 
ampled eminence in moral excellence, still it is unexplained 
how that alone could give him authority over others. His 
own doctrine (Luke xvii. 10) concerning obedience to the 
moral law was stated thus: "When ye shall have- done all 
the things that are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable 
servants ; we have done that which it was our duty to do." 
The fact that Jesus was the first to render full obedience to 
the divine law makes him worthy of our respect and honor ; 
but if he was merely one man among others, it does not 
appear that his doing what all are under obligation to do 
gives him any authority over the rest. If he was a perfect 
man, it was simply because he perfectly fulfilled the law of 
God. But his fulfilling the law does not make him the author 
or executor of the law. If it did, then in case another man 
should also perfectly fulfil the law, we should have two heads 
of the kingdom of God. And when it is said that Jesus has 
a sort of supremacy because he was the first to attain perfec- 
tion, we can only say that the being first in time does not 
necessarily make him first in degree. Ritschl 1 says, "Jesus 
being the first to make real, in his personal life, the ultimate 
end of the kingdom of God, is therefore sui generis, because 
every one who should do his duty as perfectly as he did would 
yet be unequal to him, because dependent on him." But this 
is only one of the many obscurities which result from the at- 

1 UnterricM in der christlichen Religion, § 22. Quite similarly Lipsius, 
Dogmatik, p. 541. 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 143 

tempt to avoid metaphysics. 1 If Jesus, without a previous 
example of perfect obedience to follow, could rise to the height 
of perfect obedience, why may not some one else do the same, 
even without the knowledge and stimulus of his example ? 
And though one should make this attainment partly under 
the stimulus of this example, it is still not clear how Christ's 
fidelity to duty gives him any authority or peculiar supremacy 
over all other men. The man who came at the eleventh hour 
received the same reward as the men who came early. If all 
who obey are on the same level of mere humanity and mere 
obligation to the divine law, then all who disobey are guilty 
each for himself, and all who obey obey each for himself ; and 
all are alike responsible to the divine Euler alone. It is utterly 
impossible, on the mere ground of Jesus' peculiar moral excel- 
lence, to pronounce him entitled to any authority over other 
men. And his claim of authority, the assumption of a right 
to command, the assumption of a personal headship over a com- 
munity of followers, the requirement of faith in him as the 
prime prerequisite of membership in the kingdom of God, — 
all this is inexplicable on the theory that there was nothing 
supernatural in Jesus, no superiority of nature, and no special 
commission more than any one else could have gained by 
•simply doing what he ought to do. It is possible to imagine 

1 In his Christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versbhnnng, vol. iii. 
§ 48, 1st ed., Ritschl is more extended, but not more clear and satisfactory, 
in his treatment of this point. He presents Christ's work under the point of 
view of an ethical vocation. All men have such a vocation. But other men, 
even founders of religions, combined the religious vocation with civil and 
social ones. Christ, however, combined witli his no other one. " This fact 
is explained by the scope of the vocation to which he gave himself. For the 
vocation of the royal prophet to bring about the ethical dominion of God is 
the highest conceivable one among all vocations" (p. 389). Again, ''Being 
the founder of the kingdom of God in the world, or the vehicle of God's 
moral dominion over men, he is unique in comparison with all who have 
received from him the like end to live for. Consequently, he is that personage 
in the world in whose ulrimate purpose God makes his own ultimate purpose 
effectual and manifest. His whole labor in fulfilling his vocation constitutes, 
therefore, the material of the revelation of God which is present and complete 
in him ; in other words, in him the Word of God is a human person." Ibid., 
p. 393. 



144 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

the physical miracles eliminated from the Gospel histories, it 
is possible to construct an expurgated history with these nar- 
ratives omitted or made " natural ; " but in that case we should 
be more than ever perplexed and staggered by these extra- 
ordinary assumptions of authority on the part of one who had 
done nothing except what he would have deserved to be pun- 
ished for not doing. 

Equal or greater obscurity and confusion appear in the at- 
tempt which Herrmann, Eitschl's disciple, makes to define the 
relation of Christ to Christians and the Christian Church. He 
says, 1 " The source of religious knowledge is for us neither our 
morality nor any form of metaphysics, but revelation." The 
historical facts of Christianity are made to constitute the 
essence of the revelation. " Jesus Christ," we are told, " must 
be accounted by us as the final manifestation of the divine will 
to us." 2 And not merely is Jesus declared to be an exception- 
ally excellent man, who first attained moral perfection and made 
known the divine love, but it is declared that " the ground of 
religious assurance is to be found nowhere but in him." 3 In 
this sense, as being the ground of our religious assurance, 
"Christ is the revelation. Our trust in God is constantly 
mediated by the view of him in whom we have discerned the 
decisive manifestation and illustration of the divine will to 
save." 4 But when Herrmann takes up the question, " by what 
means Christ becomes to us a revelation or a saving fact," he 
discusses the evidence of miracles first, only to find in them no 
conclusive, or even weighty, proof. He says, 5 " The discussion 
of the question, whether the evangelical accounts of miracles 
are trustworthy or not, is for the present task of theology 
wholly indifferent." His fundamental principle is that nothing 
can be really a miracle to us except facts which involve an 
expression of God's love to us individually. Although, he says, 
we are obliged to regard every event as"a product of nature 
the mediating causes of which point us into the endless," yet, 

1 Die Religion im Verhdltnm zum Welterkennen und zur Sittlichkeit, 
p. 365. 

2 Ibid., p. 367. 8 Ibid., p. 380. 
4 Ibid., pp. 382, 383. 5 Ibid., p. 383. 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OE MIRACLES. 145 

he adds, " it is possible for the Christian thankfully to recog- 
nize in events that keenly affect him miraculous deeds of God 
wrought on him, and to believe in the answering of his prayers." * 
This agrees with Eitschl's definition, 2 "For us, miracles are 
those striking natural occurrences with which the experience 
of God's special help is connected." 3 In the metaphysical 
sense, of an act not occurring in accordance with natural laws, 
we can, it is said, not prove the impossibility of miracles, since 
we cannot know the extent of those laws. But, on the other 
hand, in so far as alleged or apparent facts have no religious 
significance, we cannot call them miracles. The wonderful 
things reported in the New Testament cannot be proved to be 
impossible; yet, we are told, "we must demand of the theo- 
logian that he see that he has no right to call those facts 
miracles, unless he is conscious that they form a part of his 
own life, as proofs of the love of God to him." 4 Accordingly 
the resurrection of Christ, which Herrmann believes in, he 
accepts only as it verifies itself by its practical effect on the 
religious life. Faith in Christ, he says, must precede faith in 
the resurrection ; and this event in his life only " exercises on 
us an undefinable influence which, though it makes itself known 
in the mood of the believer, yet cannot be further analyzed ; 
and so a demonstration to others who do not so feel is cut 
off." 5 

The motive underlying this theory, namely, the desire to vindi- 
cate to miracles a religious significance, is commendable ; but it 
leads to such a conception of miracles as practically dissolves 
them into non-miraculous events. Inasmuch as the most triv- 
ial occurrence may have a marked influence on a man's re- 

1 Die Religion im Verhaltniss zum Welterkennen und zur Sittlichkeit, 
p. 384. 

2 Unterricht, etc. The idea is probably derived from Sclileiermaclier. Vide 
his Reden iiber die Religion (Piinjer's ed., 1879), p. 115: "Miracle is the 
religious name for occurrence ; every occurrence, even the most natural and 
common, as soon as it is such that the religious view of it may be the dominant 
one, is a miracle." 

8 See Excursus VII. 

4 Die Religion, etc., pp. 386, 387. 

5 Ibid., p. 388. 

10 



146 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

ligious mood, and it depends wholly on the man's own mood and 
judgment to determine whether the event is remarkable or not, 
it clearly follows that what is to one man a miracle is not one 
to another. In other words, an event is not a miracle by virtue 
of its relation to the divine causation, but by virtue of its rela- 
tion to the particular condition and conceptions of the individ- 
ual who considers it. Herrmann says expressly, " The mistake 
which cannot be sufficiently condemned [in the ordinary ortho- 
dox view of miracles] is that the essence of miracles is looked 
for in the causal connections of the event." 1 It is difficult to 
say whether the naivete or the audacity of this assertion is 
most to be astonished at. When one undertakes to define a 
word, he is ordinarily supposed to undertake to tell what men 
in general mean by it. But Ritschl and his school calmly in- 
form us that what men generally mean by a miracle is not the 
true idea of a miracle at all, — that the true idea, in fact, is not 
understood except by Eitschl and his followers. The phenome- 
non thus presented is an extraordinary one. Generally when 
one undertakes to rectify the popular conception of a word, he is 
at least expected to retain something of the popular sense in his 
corrected definition ; otherwise the word itself should be aban- 
doned. If it is certain that no such objects as centaurs ever 
existed, then let us plainly say so, and not insist that, properly 
speaking, the centaur, instead of being the horse-man of ancient 
mythology, is nothing but the giraffe. Yet to do so would be 
quite as sensible as the manner in which the Eitschlites use the 
term " miracle.'' Miracles not only etymologically, but in popu- 
lar estimation, have always involved an element of the startling, 
— something to be wondered at, something aside from the natural 
and ordinary course of things. But if now a miracle is to be de- 
fined merely as an event in which we recognize God as blessing 
us, the element of wonderfulness, as well as the element of extra- 
ordinariness, is taken away. For according to the theology now 
under consideration, love is the one attribute of God which 
swallows up all others ; and that God should manifest his love, 
especially to those that love him, has in it nothing of the sur- 
prising ; it would be strange if it were otherwise. Moreover, 

1 Die Religion, etc., p. 385. 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OE MIRACLES. 147 

according to the definition of miracles above given, miracles no 
longer belong to the category of rare things ; they are, rather, a 
part of the regular course of nature ; the more men live as they 
should, the more ought every event to be to them a miracle ; for God 
makes all things work together for good to them that love him. 1 
It is sufficiently self-evident that this effort to transfer the 
name miracle to something hitherto never meant by it, must 
share the fate of all similar quixotic undertakings. "What it is 
important to know is how this school of thought stands related 
to the question, whether miracles, in the sense always current 
hitherto, really occurred. Here Herrmann unequivocally sides 
with the rationalistic school, assuming, as scarcely needing any 
argument, that all events are mediated by natural forces. He 
differs with them only in that he denies that any one is so well 
acquainted with the whole round of natural law as to be able 
to affirm that any alleged event is outside of it. Accordingly 
the reported miracles of the Bible, improbable as they may seem, 
may yet be facts, only belonging to a higher order of nature 
than that with which we are familiar. We have previously (p. 
Ill) had occasion to treat of this (what may be called) Stras- 
burg-clock theory of miracles. The Eitschl form of the theory 
has one advantage over the other form of it, namely, that it 
-does not make the essence of the miracle consist simply in the 
element of human ignorance, but emphasizes more the religious 
impressiveness of the miracle. But it labors under all the ob- 
jections which otherwise burden the hypothesis, besides the 

1 Teichmiiller (Religionsphiloftophie, pp. 171 sqq., 193. 577.), though an oppo- 
nent of Ritschl's theology, defines miracles in a very similar way. "The 
seat of the miracle rests in the religious interpretation, that is, in the un- 
derstanding of the believer," p. 173. "The believer in real miracles does 
not feel the slightest need of going into the question of natural laws, and pos- 
sesses, morever, no physical or psychological knowledge of the natural course 
of events," p. 174. " Miracles will take place as long as there are men in 
existence for whom they can take place, no matter at what time they may 
live," p. 192. In general Teichmiiller seems to hold that any so-called mirac- 
ulous event which works tcell, as, for example, the resurrection of Christ 
(p. 189), or Paul's conversion, may be properly called miracles, whereas such 
stories as those of the raising of the young man and Lazarus " cannot be 
reckoned as miracles in the genuine and strict sense," p. 224. 



148 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

additional one, that a much wider door is opened to the work- 
ing of mere caprice in the definition and recognition of a mir- 
acle. Anything and everything may, on the Kitschl theory, be 
called a miracle; we cannot even define a miracle as something 
intrinsically fitted to produce a good impression ; the only test 
is the fact that it does produce it. At the same time this theory 
recognizes the inherent strangeness and improbability of cer- 
tain events which are called miraculous. It would relegate to 
scientific investigation all such facts or apparent facts. And if 
an event should be found to be both improbable in itself and 
also unedifying in a religious respect, then of course it would 
have to be pronounced no miracle, and probably also not a fact. 
In other words, the theory opens the door to unlimited license 
not only as regards the interpretation, but as regards the credi- 
bility, of the Biblical narratives of miracles. To be sure, Herr- 
mann himself admits the fact of Christ's resurrection, and 
perhaps some of the other reported miracles. But in doing so 
he involves himself in the greatest confusion. At one moment 
(pp. 384, 385) he assumes that all events are mediated by nat- 
ural causes ; at another (p. 388) he calls the resurrection of 
Christ as inexplicable as the creation of the world. But if it is 
assumed once for all that no event takes place without the medi- 
ation of physical forces, then every event is practically just as 
much, and just as little, explicable as every other. Some events 
may be more familiar than others ; but the causal connection 
which determines all that happens no one can see in any case. 
Only antecedents and consequents are seen. Therefore the resur- 
rection of Christ ought, on this view of things, no more to be 
singled out and called inexplicable than any other, even the 
most trivial, occurrences. They are all alike inexplicable in that 
we cannot detect the secret forces which connect the antecedent 
with the consequent ; they are all alike explicable in that natural 
forces are always assumed as in fact at work in producing the 
effects. 

The problem before us is, how those who assume this negative 
or agnostic attitude respecting miracles become convinced of the 
uniqueness and authority of Jesus Christ. His extraordinary 
works do not constitute the ground of the conviction. It is 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIEACLES. 149 

not known whether any of these works were strictly miracu- 
lous or not ; but in any case, we are told, the alleged miracles 
of Christ " cannot be in themselves manifestations of God to us ; 
for they gain for every one a religious significance only by the 
fact that they stand in connection with the person of Jesus." 1 
But though there is unquestionably a certain truth in this, yet 
the assertion must hold equally of all the acts of Jesus, whether 
miraculous or not. And the question still remains, How do we 
come to a conviction of the uniqueness of Christ's person ? 
Why do we ascribe to him a peculiar authority ? The mode of 
proof, if such it may be called, which is resorted to by the class 
of theologians now under consideration, is, as might be inferred 
from the foregoing, purely subjective. While despising all met- 
aphysical arguments, and while emphasizing the importance 
of the historical element in Christianity, they yet make one's 
personal experience the ultimate proof. Christ is called, with 
great emphasis, the Eevelation of God. " But," says the same 
author above quoted, 2 " only that which delivers us from con- 
flict with evil, that is, lifts us out of our previous lost estate, 
makes on us the impression of something overwhelmingly new, 
— of a veritable revelation." " To the Christian," he says again, 3 
" revelation is the self-revelation of God, that is, the fact that God 
•has overpowered him by an indisputable proof of his almighty 
love, and has changed him from an unhappy man to a cheerful 
and confident one." But this revelation comes from " the his- 
torical appearance of Jesus, which belongs as much to our own 
reality as the coat which we put on, and the house which we 
inhabit." 4 In our experience of trouble and of remorse " we 
can come to understand what there is wonderful and saving in 
the person of Jesus. That is, we perceive that he is the only 
part of the actual world which is not drawn down into this 
turbid confusion." 5 This recognition of Jesus as sinless works, 
we are told, as a liberating force on us. 6 

1 Herrmann, Die Religion, etc., p. 387. 

2 In an essay entitled Der Begriff der Offenbarung, read at a theological 
conference in Giessen, 1887, p. 6. 

3 Ibid., p. 13. * Ibid., p. 16. 6 Ibid., p 20. 

6 Ibid., p. 22. Ci. Die Religion, etc., p. 391, where a similar line of thought 



150 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

There is altogether too much obscurity and confusion of 
thought here for a system which makes large claims to being 
the only one worthy of adoption in the present day. Bevela- 
tion used to be regarded as a disclosure made concerning God, — 
his character and his purposes. According to the above-given 
statement, revelation is nothing but a new experience within 
ourselves, — another name, in fact, for conversion or regenera- 
tion. The old conception of Christ as having a supernatural 
nature and commission is abandoned ; and the substitute for it 
is the obscure oracle, that the historical appearance of Jesus 
belongs as much to our own reality as the coat which we put 
on, or the house which we live in. Christ's uniqueness is 
affirmed. . The more the old notion of his Deity is abandoned, 
the more diligently is the attribute of Deity ascribed to him. 
But when we ask what is meant by the attribute, we are told 
that it means that Jesus, in his life and teaching, so perfectly 
represented the divine character that he may be called divine. 
But it is added that, in whatever sense the appellation properly 
belongs to him, it belongs also to all men who, through faith in 
him, become the children of God. 1 

But in all this there is no recognition of Christ's authority ; 
or if there is, there is no explanation of it which can satisfy 
either the representations of the Bible or the plain common 
sense of the Christian. Christ's uniqueness is made to consist 
solely in the fact that he was the first and only one who has 
realized in his life the principle of the divine love. By virtue 
of his perfect obedience he came to feel that he was called to 
found a kingdom, — a community of men who should aim to 

is found, only still more obscurely expressed. He there says, " The assurance 
of faith that his [Jesus'] willing and working is the willing and working of 
God, is permeated with the moral necessity from which the consciousness of 
our freedom is born. The moral necessity of recognizing what he willed as 
of the highest worth, and therefore as the substance of the divine will, makes 
the faith a free act. . . . Becoming conscious of one's own freedom, and un- 
derstanding the end of Jesus' activity as the ultimate end to which we must 
conceive everything to be subject, — these two are one and the same thing." 

1 Ritschl, Rechtferiigung, etc., vol. iii. p. 351. He refers to Athanasius's 
expression {Be inrarnatione verbi Dei, § 54), " He was made man that we 
might be made God." 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 151 

regulate their lives by the same principle. So far as appears, 
he received from God no clearly attested commission, and had 
no intrinsic right to exercise authority over others. The one 
peculiarity was his moral superiority over others, on the strength 
of which he found himself " called " to establish a kingdom of 
God on earth. But this leads us to consider more particularly 
another point. 

3. The skeptical Christians, in their attempt to subordinate 
or eliminate the miraculous features of the Gospel histories, vir- 
tually admit the greater miracles, while they deny the lesser 
ones. 

In acknowledging the fact of a special revelation, or of the 
sinlessness of Christ, one must acknowledge the fact of the 
miraculous. One may indeed ask : Cannot God make himself 
authoritatively known except by working a miracle ? Can he 
not reveal himself through chosen prophets who need no cre- 
dentials but the power and impressiveness of their own words ? 
Can there not be a real revelation which does not involve such 
a strain on intelligent minds as comes from the assumption of 
the disturbance of natural law ? Is the spiritual so dependent 
on the natural, or so indissolubly connected with it, that a rev- 
elation of spiritual truth need be accompanied by an interfer- 
ence with the order of nature ? 

We reply : The essential question is, whether there are special 
revelations or not. Let it be supposed that they are purely spir- 
itual ; yet if they are exceptional, that is, made at a particular 
time and to particular men as they are not to others, — made so 
as to be recognized by the recipients as something special to them, 
— made to be communicated by them as something authorita- 
tive to other men, — why, then all the difficulty which is urged 
against the ordinary view of revelation holds against this. If 
there is any sacredness or fixedness in physical law, the same 
tendency of mind which leads us to assume this must lead us also 
to assume an equal fixedness in the operation of mental and spir- 
itual forces. If the supposed revelation infringes this fixed 
regularity of the mental world, then we have as real a miracle 
as when water is turned into wine by a word. The revelation 
would not be a special revelation without in some way disturb- 



152 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

ing the ordinary operation of spiritual forces. It would other- 
wise simply be a revelation only in the loose sense, that all 
nature and all mind is a revelation of God. That is, the reve- 
lation, if such it could be called, would be something continuous 
and universal, such as every mind can perceive, and every mind 
may be an organ of. In other words, it would not be a revela- 
tion in any distinctive sense at all. If, however, the revelation 
is to be genuinely special, and yet purely spiritual, that is, if it 
is to consist in an extraordinary operation of the divine spirit on 
the human spirit, then that is simply to say that there is a 
miracle of inspiration. It implies an exceptional act of God, 
vesting in some one man an absolutely unique function. Even 
apart from the question how such a choice is attested, the selec- 
tion itself of one man out of the millions around him as the 
medium of revealing to the rest of men the divine character 
and will, involves what is inexplicable by any of the known 
laws of the universe ; it is a greater breach of the continuity of 
things than any merely physical miracle would be, by as much as 
the moral is higher than the physical. Whether the ordinary 
influences of the Holy Spirit on men are called supernatural or 
not, such extraordinary influences as constitute a special and 
authoritative revelation of divine truth would be supernatural 
in the most emphatic sense. Here would be involved all that 
is difficult or obnoxious in the ordinary doctrine of miracles. 
The mere getting rid of physical and visible miracles would 
be a small gain ; it would be rather a positive loss ; for the 
addition of the physical and palpable miracle furnishes just the 
evidence which is needed of the genuineness of the alleged spir- 
itual revelation. To take pains to ignore or deny the physical 
miracle, while admitting the spiritual one, would be like admit- 
ting the genuineness of a royal edict, while yet denying the 
genuineness or value of the royal seal which vouches for 
the genuineness of the document. True, the sealing-wax and 
the stamp on it are intrinsically of little worth, compared 
with the royal will expressed in the words sealed up. But 
it is yet of immense importance to have a voucher for the 
genuineness of the royal edict. Just so a spiritual revelation 
without any outward mark of it could not be verified as such. 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 153 

We should have to depend simply on the word of the professed 
revealer. However great might be our confidence in him in 
general, the fact that he claims exceptional illumination would 
create a demand for exceptional attestation. To make war on 
the alleged attestations on the ground that they would be in 
conflict with natural law, and at the same time to defend the 
reality of the alleged revelation, which must equally have in- 
volved a departure from the order of nature, — this may be a 
rationalistic course, but it is not rational. He who can admit 
that Jesus Christ was chosen of God to communicate to men an 
authoritative revelation has yielded the whole ground as against 
the supernaturalist. After granting the greater miracle, he cuts 
but a sorry figure in trying to ignore or disbelieve the smaller 
ones which are grouped around the greater. He will gain noth- 
ing in the estimation of the common skeptic, so long as he sin- 
cerely retains what have always been regarded as the essential 
features of Christianity. And he will gain little more by using 
the traditional phraseology of supernatural Christianity, while 
yet virtually abandoning the supernatural conception of it. The 
only self-consistent course is either to deny the supernatural 
absolutely, and consequently to deny to Jesus Christ all au- 
thoritative relation to other men ; or else to accept supernatural 
-Christianity frankly according to the only trustworthy sources 
from which we derive a knowledge of it. 

Similarly, the assumption of the sinless excellence of Jesus, 
which is admitted by many who question his alleged miracles, 
is exposed to all the objections which are urged against mira- 
cles in general, and to some peculiar difficulties besides. The 
possibility of perfect sinlessness must indeed be admitted. But 
none the less is the possibility of physical miracles admitted by 
all theists. But the theistic rationalist regards the improba- 
bility of miracles as so great as to make it practically impossi- 
ble to believe in their occurrence. But there is no improbability 
of miracles in the sphere of nature greater than the improba- 
bility that any one man has ever yet lived a perfectly blameless 
life. All experience and observation and testimony discredit 
any such claim made by any one on his own behalf or on be- 
half of another. And if any one were perfect, the fact would 



154 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

be peculiarly difficult to prove, since moral perfection is not 
something open to public view, and even apparent faultlessness 
would not generally be regarded as sufficient to outweigh the 
immense presumption there is that every man has in his heart 
thoughts and feelings which cannot meet the approval of the 
perfectly holy God. Men have sometimes professed to be per- 
fect ; even good men have made the claim. But the claim has 
been uniformly disallowed by others, and perhaps often for the 
very reason that the claim was made. No physical law is more 
uniform in its working than the recurrence of sin and imper- 
fection in every human being. That any considerable number 
of men should have been willing to admit an exception in the 
case of Jesus is itself almost a miracle. It never could have 
happened, if he had been regarded as a mere man, possessed of 
no supernatural powers. He was accounted sinless because the 
appearance and claim of sinlessness were accompanied hy the 
appearance and claim of superhuman endowment. The claim 
of superhuman endowment would have been disallowed but for 
the moral excellence ; and the moral pre-eminence would have 
been disallowed but for the claim of supernatural endowment. 
Had he been a merely ordinary man, so far as his life was con- 
cerned, occupied with his trade, but laying claim to the distinc- 
tion of sinlessness, the claim, even if not capable of positive 
disproof, would yet have made no great impression, and would 
have gained no wide acceptance, if any at all. 1 It was because 
he assumed the part of a divinely commissioned reformer and 
Redeemer, because he claimed not only uniqueness of char- 
acter, but uniqueness of nature and uniqueness of intrinsic 
authority over men, that his claim of sinlessness was admitted. 
The two claims could not but stand or fall together. He who 
admits the sinlessness of Christ, unless he does so blindly, be- 
cause others have done it before, can find no justifying reason 
for his belief, unless he assumes, together with the sinlessness, 
a uniqueness of nature or of relation which involves all the 

1 E. W. Newman, in his What is Christianity without Christ ? in which he 
arraigns the moral character of Jesus as extremely defective and faulty, 
shows what is the tendency of a thorough abandonment of the belief in the 
supernatural. 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 155 

essential marks of a miracle. When, therefore, one is troubled 
by the allegations of particular miracles wrought by Christ, but 
is ready to admit Christ himself to be the one sinless individual 
of the race, and the one man specially commissioned by God to 
communicate the divine counsels to man, we can only call this 
a conspicuous example of straining out a gnat and swallowing a 
camel. 

4. The skeptical or agnostic attitude towards miracles leads 
to irrational caprice in the treatment of the historical sources 
of information respecting the origin of Christianity. 

The miraculous is in fact so inextricably interwoven with 
the earliest extant narratives of Christ that it cannot be elimi- 
nated except by the most arbitrary and unreasonable process. 
The history of modern criticism of the Gospels has shown that, 
whatever liberty may have been taken and accorded in discuss- 
ing the questions relating to the age, genuineness, composi- 
tion, and authenticity of the New Testament books, the one 
thing that cannot be got rid of in them is the supernatural. 1 
Paulus's attempt to explain the miracles as natural events not 
understood by the narrators to be supernatural, was long ago 
discarded as ridiculously arbitrary. The mythical theory has 
met an almost similar fate, though there are still many who 
cling to some of its assumptions. But the whole inspiration 
of the effort to expurgate the miraculous from the Gospels 
comes from the general notion that miracles are incredible, — 
from the miraculophobia of the present day. By no sifting pro- 
cess can the miraculous be eliminated from these books. No 
external or internal evidence goes to show that this element is 
a later addition. Mark's Gospel, widely reputed to present the 
most primitive extant form of the evangelic history, is as full 
of it as any other, and perhaps even gives it greater promi- 
nence. John's Gospel, the latest of the four, exhibits no es- 
sential contrast with the others in its portraiture of the 
supernatural element in Christ's life. One may conjecture 
that there are late interpolations, or that all the Gospels 

1 Vide Prof. J. H. Thayer, Criticism Confirmatory of the Gospels (in Boston 
Lectures for 1871) ; Prof. G. P. Fisher, Supernatural Origin of Christianity; 
C A. Row, The Supernatural in the N. T.; The Jesus of the Evant, 



156 



SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 



were written in the second century; but this is pure conjec- 
ture, contrary to all the evidence in the case. But if one 
choose to adopt such a hypothesis, the only result is to throw 
the whole history of the incipient church into an impenetrable 
cloud. The person of Christ, his character, his claims, his 
peculiar relation to his followers, — all this is left to be thought 
of as one pleases. The " critical feeling " which strikes out the 
miraculous stories must construct the true story of Jesus as 
best it can. Early traditions can count for only so much as 
the critic chooses to let them ; and this is very little, for the 
early traditions are all saturated with the supernatural. 

Whoever adopts the principle that the narratives of miracles 
are somehow to be got over or explained away cannot consist- 
ently stop short of a similar process with reference to all those 
passages which ascribe to Jesus a superhuman dignity and au- 
thority. These representations, however, run all through the 
Gospel histories. No critical suspicion belongs to the sections 
which portray Jesus' unique claims ; they belong to the warp and 
woof of the history. As above shown, the same reasons which 
can be urged against the authenticity of the stories of miracles 
bear with equal, if not with greater, weight against everything 
which pictures Christ as the only begotten Son of God. And the 
actual result is that, according to the degree of logical consist- 
ency with which the critical canon is applied, we find the 
miraculophobists now acknowledging almost the highest that 
has ever been held respecting the personal dignity of Christ ; 
now recognizing him as unique in sinlessness, though merely 
human ; now putting him at the head of the world's sages and 
prophets ; now making him merely a good man who somehow 
came to be regarded as fulfilling the Old Testament anticipa- 
tions of the Messiah ; now regarding him as a gifted enthusiast 
who made some impression on his contemporaries ; now calling 
him a man of erratic impulses and of very defective virtue. Any 
theory of Jesus' character and calling can be derived from the 
New Testament narratives, provided one exercises his critical 
feeling in such a way as to pronounce mythical or unauthentic 
what he happens not to like. There is something almost piti- 
able in the manner in which some critics treat the question of 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 157 

Christ's miracles. Those passages 1 in which Jesus is reported to 
have refused to work miracles to gratify the curiosity of cap- 
tious or superstitious men, or in which he seems to depreciate 
the value of supernatural manifestations, are pronounced un- 
doubtedly authentic. But the more numerous ones, 2 in which 
Jesus is represented as appealing to his own miraculous works 
as evidence of his divine commission, are assumed to be the 
work of a legendary imagination. If there were anything like 
contradiction between the two classes of passages, there would 
be at least some plausibility in this method of explanation ; 
but of contradiction there is not the faintest trace. The two 
representations are even found virtually combined in one verse 
(John xiv. 11). That Jesus should refuse to make a thauma- 
turgic display of his power is precisely what we should expect 
of him, if he was the sort of miracle- worker that the Gospels 
picture him to be. That he should not have expected to con- 
vince the people of his Messiahship by the mere exercise of 
his miraculous gifts, but rather, and chiefly, by the impressive- 
ness and authority of his character and teaching, — this, too, 
is quite in accordance with intrinsic probability and with the 
narrative itself. But Matthew Arnold says : 3 "It is most re- 
markable, and the best proof of the simplicity, seriousness, and 
good faith which intercourse with Jesus Christ had inspired, 
that witnesses with a fixed prepossession, and having no doubt 
at all as to the interpretation to be put on Christ's acts and 
career, should yet admit so much of what makes against them- 
selves and their own power of interpreting. For them, it was 
a thing beyond all doubt, that by miracles Jesus manifested 

1 As Matt. xii. 39 (xvi. 4 ; Mark viii. 12 ; Luke xi. 29) ; Luke xvi. 31 ; 
John iv. 48, vi. 30 sqq. 

2 As Matt. ix. 6 (Mark ii. 10; Luke v. 24); xi. 2-5 (Luke vii. 18-22); 
Markiii. 20-30 (Luke xi. 20) ; Luke x. 13, xiii. 32; John x. 25, 38, xi. 42, 
xiv. 11. Yet in the face of this fact Schenkel ( Grundlehren des Christenthums 
§ 263) does not hesitate dogmatically to affirm that Jesus, "in order decisively 
to assert himself as Redeemer, never appealed to an external superiority, to 
miracles, or to the testimony of tradition. This -was done by the Evangelists 
and Apostles after him, not by himself." How convenient it is to be om- 
niscient ! 

8 Literature and Dogma, p. 158 (fifth edition, 1876). 



158 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

forth his glory and induced the faithful to believe in him. Yet 
what checks to this paramount and all-governing belief of 
theirs do they report from Jesus himself ! " And then he goes 
on to quote the passages above referred to, in which Jesus is 
described as blaming the people who were greedy for signs and 
wonders. Of course, now, the evangelists, if they had had 
less " simplicity," would not have stultified themselves by admit- 
ting such contradictory reports ! If they had been intelligent 
enough to see that they were guilty of such self-contradiction, 
they would have omitted those passages in which Jesus is made 
to disclaim the character of a miracle- worker. We should 
not have been so fortunate as to have even these few clews 
to a correct knowledge of the fact. Even the author of the 
Fourth Gospel, although a man of "philosophical acquire- 
ments," is afflicted with the same simplicity. "He deals in 
miracles just as confidingly " as the other historians, 1 and, like 
them, he allows the reported language of Christ to contradict 
his own conception of Christ. How grateful we ought to be 
that the evangelists were so " simple " as not to know when 
they were guilty of the most flagrant self-contradiction ! How 
fortunate for the world that the writing of the Gospel narra- 
tive fell into the hands of men who were so unintelligent and 
honest that they told the truth, as it were, in spite of them- 
selves ! Inasmuch as they were " men who saw thaumaturgy 
in all that Jesus did," 2 their intention must have been to rep- 
resent his whole life as a grand thaumaturgical exhibition, and 
to represent him as claiming the power to do wonders, and as 
appealing to the wonders in proof of his extraordinary com- 
mission. Jesus, to be sure, did nothing of the sort. He was, 
on the contrary, intensely opposed to the whole miracle mania. 
" To convey at all to such hearers of him that there was any 
objection to miracles, his own sense of the objection must have 
been profound ; and to get them, who neither shared nor under- 
stood it, to repeat it a few times, he must have repeated it 
many times." 3 The phenomenon, then, according to Mr. Arnold, 
was this : Jesus and John the Baptist were .contemporary 

1 Literature and Dogma, p. 178 (fifth edition, 1870). 

2 Ibid., p. 118. 8 Ibid., p. 158. 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIEACLES. 159 

prophets. 1 But neither Jesus nor John wrought any miracles. 
Of John this is expressly recorded ; 2 and in none of the Gospels 
is there the faintest hint that he exercised or claimed any mi- 
raculous power. He was the greatest of all the prophets of the 
Jewish dispensation. 3 He was a second Elijah. 4 But although 
the original Elijah was universally esteemed a great miracle- 
worker ; and although the second Elijah created a most power- 
ful sensation "by his preaching, — yet he never wrought and was 
never imagined to have wrought a single miracle. Not only 
his contemporaries, but his reporters, show not the slightest 
tendency to ascribe to him any thaumaturgic power whatever. 
He had no occasion to refuse to work miracles, for he was 
never asked to work them. He did not need to protest against 
the popular tendency to expect miraculous works from great 
prophets ; for in his case the people seemed to be so wholly in- 
tent on the sermons which he preached, and to be so convinced 
by his preaching, that they never thought to ask for miracles 
as his credentials. 5 Jesus, however, though he preached the 
same sermon of repentance, and also wrought no miracles, 
somehow found himself continually met by a demand that he 
should perform them. He had to refuse and keep refusing. 
He had to tell the people over and over, that miracles could not 
be performed, and would do no good if they could be. He had 
to din this teaching into the heads of the superstitious people, 
till at last, through sheer repetition, the words stuck, and were 
handed down amongst the other things that Jesus said, and 
even found their way into the records that have been preserved 
down to our time; although the narrators themselves could 

1 Mr. Arnold, indeed, does not thus speak of John in comparison with 
Jesus ; but he cannot take exception to this representation of the Biblical de- 
scription of him. 

2 John x. 41. 8 Matt. xi. 11. 4 Mark ix. 13. 

5 This fact seems to have been overlooked by Strauss also, who (Leben 
Jesu, § 42) accounts for the ascription of miracles to Jesus by the following 
generations by saying that, as Moses and the principal prophets were reputed 
to have wrought miracles, "it was natural that miracles were likewise expected 
of every one who claimed to be a prophet." Why, then, we must ask, did 
not the people ascribe miracles to John ? For he certainly claimed to be a 
prophet, and his claim was admitted. 



160 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

not understand how he could have failed to be all the time 
doing marvels, and were so persuaded of this that they have 
filled their story of him with accounts of his thaumaturgical 
doings, and represented him not only as doing miracles, but as 
appealing to them in attestation of his divine commission ! We 
owe to nothing but to their incorrigible dullness — or " sim- 
plicity " — the fortunate chance that, in a few instances, this 
refusal of Jesus to have anything to do with miracles has crept 
into the writings of the very men who did not and could not 
conceive of him otherwise than as a great thaumaturgus. 

Now, how does Mr. Arnold account for this marked difference 
between the description of Jesus and that of John the Baptist ? l 
How does he find out that his is the true explanation of the 
phenomena of the Gospel histories ? How can he be so sure 
that the whole current of the narrative is false as regards 
miracles, and only these few straggling passages reveal to us 
the exact fact? How does he know, on the one hand, that 
Jesus did not, as Kdnan makes him, 2 yield to the popular clamor 
for a startling sign, and actually pose as a thaumaturgus ? How 
has he made himself sure that his own father was altogether 
mistaken, on the other, when he said that the absence of mira- 
cles in the Gospels would have been far more wonderful than 
their presence ? The only answer to all this, and other questions 
that might be raised, is that the "literary and scientific criticism" 
of the present day has decided that the fact must be as Mr. 
Matthew Arnold states it. This kind of criticism, he tells us, 3 
requires " the finest heads and the most sure tact." The theo- 
logians who have undertaken to interpret the New Testament 
have all been devoid of these necessary qualifications, and there- 
fore they have made " a pretty mess of it." 4 Men who might 
have done better have devoted themselves to other departments 
of work. We are left to infer that Mr. Arnold is the critic 
with a fine head and a sure tact who has had the boldness to 
assail the popular superstitions, and to tell us what is genuine 
in the Gospels and what is the product of the legendary mania. 

1 Cf. on this point G. P. Eisher, Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief, 
p. 162. 

2 Life of Jesus, p. 193. 3 Literature and Dogma, p. 184. 4 Jbid., p. 185. 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OE MIRACLES. 161 

The sum of the matter is that, according to the theory in 
question, the supernatural must be ruled out at the outset ; but, 
inasmuch as the supernatural permeates the whole evangelical 
history like an indwelling spirit, it becomes a difficult problem 
to discover how to eliminate it, and yet define what shall be 
allowed to remain as genuine and authentic. No wonder that 
for the task a very fine head and a most sure tact are essential. 
Mr. Arnold, indeed, himself, though he affirms that the literary 
and scientific criticism of the Bible is "very hard," 1 yet dis- 
courses as if it were very easy to him. He pronounces oracu- 
larly that certain utterances bear unmistakable marks of having 
been really uttered by Jesus, and that certain others as clearly 
are spurious, though attributed to him just as positively. His 
criterion is simply and solely his conception of what Jesus was. 
What, according to his feeling, Jesus might have said or ought 
to have said, that he will accept as historic, — that, and nothing 
else. Having decided that miracles never were wrought, and 
that consequently Jesus did not work any, he must solve the 
problem how so many narratives of miracles got into the record. 
The gist of the explanation given is that the Jewish Christians 
had been led by their training to expect miracles as the mark 
of their Messiah, and that, having accepted Jesus as the 
Messiah, they felt, when they looked back, as if he must have 
wrought miracles. "Well, no doubt the Jews had had great 
expectations of what the promised Messiah would do. He was 
to appear suddenly, and was to deliver Israel by irresistible 
power from the hand of oppressors. He was to be a great 
king, immeasurably greater than even David ; and under his 
reign the Jews were to enjoy prosperity and peace such as they 
had never known before. These were the prominent and ab- 
sorbing features of the Jewish Messianic idea. That the Mes- 
siah was to be a miracle-worker of such a sort as Jesus is 
represented in the Gospels to have been, is not one of the 
features of the Messianic idea. Now, if the characteristics of 
the evangelic records are to be explained as reflections of the 
Jewish expectations rather than as a simple account of facts, 
then the question arises, "Why do not the Gospels represent 

1 Literature and Dogma, p. 185. 



162 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

Jesus as a temporal king, and so as fulfilling the Jewish ex- 
pectations ? If the writers could not help seeing thaumaturgy 
in all that Jesus did, although neither the Jewish apocalyptic 
writers 1 nor the Old Testament writers had ever pictured him 
in that character, still more ought we to infer that they must 
have seen royalty and regal power in his whole life, since this 
is just what the prophets and apocryphal writers had emphasized 
as his leading characteristic. It is easy, of course, to reply that 
the facts were too manifestly opposed to such a legend. The 
Jews were not delivered from their oppressors, and were not 
enjoying the expected Messianic prosperity ; and therefore they 
could not imagine that Jesus had done what, as was only too 
obvious, had not been done. Very well ; then it appears that 
the Jewish ideal of the Messiah had not been realized in its 
most prominent feature ; but nevertheless Jesus was regarded as 
having been the promised Messiah. What necessity, then, was 
there for a legendary ascription to him of miracles, which were 
not a prominent feature in the Jewish ideal of him ? But more 
than this : the popular expectation respecting the Messiah must 
have been abandoned at the outset by all those who believed 
in Jesus as the Christ. If (as we are asked to believe) he 
wrought no miracles in fact, then he was accepted as the Mes- 
siah, although he did not fulfil the expectations either as regards 
royal power or as regards miraculous power. In short, the carnal 
Jewish notion had to be entirely given up. If still he was con- 
ceived as the one prophesied of in the Old Testament, it was by 
virtue of a different interpretation from that which had hitherto 
generally prevailed. The Christian conception of the Messiah 
(according to the theory of Mr. Arnold) must originally have 
been entirely defecated of all those Jewish fancies which in- 
vested the Messiah with political and thaumaturgic power, else 
Jesus could never have been acknowledged as Messiah at all. 
If so, how was it that twenty or thirty years later, or even still 
sooner, within the circle of those same Christians and their im- 
mediate successors, it became " a thing beyond all doubt that by 

1 On the ante- Christian Messianic conceptions, cf. Hilgenfeld, Diejildische 
Apokalyptik, and Messias Judaeorum. Also James Drummond, The Jewish 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 163 

miracles Jesus manifested forth his glory and induced the faith- 
ful to believe in him ? " 1 Originally, according to Mr. Arnold, 
it must have been beyond all doubt that Jesus did no miracles 
at all ; now, only a little while afterwards, and among the people 
who had received the Christian faith most directly, just the op- 
posite had come to be beyond all doubt ! The fleshly Jewish 
conception, which had been finally and definitively overcome 
before the apostles publicly preached Christ to their country- 
men, returned and took full possession of their minds as 
regards that one particular, although in all other respects the 
carnal Jewish conception was and continued to be entirely 
repudiated ! 

Take the case of the resurrection of Christ. How plain the 
whole thing is to Mr. Arnold : " The more the miraculousness 
of the story deepens, as after the death of Jesus, the more does 
the texture of the incidents become loose and floating, the more 
does the very air and aspect of things seem to tell us we are in 
wonderland. Jesus after his resurrection not known to Mary 
Magdalene, taken by her for the gardener ; appearing in another 
form, and not known by the two disciples going with him to 
Emmaus and at supper with him there ; not known by his most 
intimate apostles on the borders of the Sea of Galilee ; and 
presently, out of these vague beginnings, the recognitions get- 
ting asserted, then the ocular demonstrations, the final commis- 
sions, the ascension; one hardly knows which- of the two to 
call most evident here, the perfect simplicity and good faith of 
the narrators, or the plainness with which they themselves 
really say to us : Behold a legend growing under your eyes ! " 2 

What a blessing it is to have a "fine head" and a "sure 
tact " ! This legend which grows up under our eyes grew up 
in three days ! Beyond all contradiction, within less than two 
months after the crucifixion the apostles were boldly preaching 
the resurrection as an undeniable fact, and rested their whole 
case on the truth of this allegation. What now were the apostles 
alleging at that time ? That Jesus had appeared, but was " not 
known " ? Were they preaching about Mary Magdalene's having 
seen somebody whom she took to be a gardener ? Were they 
1 Literature and Dogma, p. 158. 2 Ibid., p. 151. 



164 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

telling about some unknown person that had appeared to them 
on the shore of the Lake of Galilee ? Were they urging the Jews 
to accept Jesus as their Messiah for the reason that two men 
had had an interesting talk with a mysterious stranger on the 
way to Emmaus ? Of course not. The "legend" was already 
full-grown. So far as this story is concerned, it might have 
been recorded at once. In a few days or weeks after the cruci- 
fixion the disciples were telling confidently, not of an unknown 
Jesus who had appeared to them, but of an unmistakable reap- 
pearance of the Crucified One. In spite of Mr. Arnold's " fine 
head," it is palpable that there was no slow and gradual growth 
of a legendary story, but that the story was from the beginning 
unequivocal, well-defined, in all essential features precisely what 
the New Testament records present to us. 

One thing is certain. The supernatural is so inwrought into 
the very substance of the New Testament, that unbelieving 
critics can eliminate it only by the most arbitrary and uncriti- 
cal process, and can never come to any agreement among them- 
selves as to what is to be accepted and what rejected in the 
evangelical portraiture of Jesus Christ and his work. 1 

5. The agnostic or skeptical attitude towards the supernatural 
leads to the assumption of an unwarrantable distinction between 
the present Christian world and the original Christians in their 
relation to the evidences of Christianity. 

Miracles, either as real or as apparent, are often acknowledged 
to have served a useful purpose in the original introduction of 
Christianity, but are declared to be now no longer serviceable. 
Christianity is said to be accepted now, not on account of the 
historical miracles, but on account of its intrinsic worth. The 
miracles are so far removed from us, so intrinsically difficult to 
substantiate, and so obnoxious to the scientific spirit of the 
times, that they seem to be a burden rather than a help. Even 
some strenuous defenders of the reality of the Christian mira- 
cles are ready to make this concession. Thus J. Hirzel 2 says: 

1 Eor a good exhibition of the arbitrariness of miraculophobists in their 
treatment of the Gospels, vide Henry Rogers's critique of Strauss and Renan, 
in his Reason and Faith, and other Essays, pp. 137 sqq. 

2 TJeber das Wunder, p. 3. Similarly L. I. Biickert (Rationalismus, p. 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 165 

" We grant at the outset . . . that the bare historical narratives 
of miracles do not have the evidential force for us which the 
miracles themselves had for the eye-witnesses of them. We 
can let it pass as quite orthodox when one says, ' I believed at 
first, not because, but in spite, of miracles.' Yes, we believe 
now, not in Christ on account of the outward miracles, but in 
the miracles on account of Christ." 

Now that there is a difference between us and the first Chris- 
tians in respect to the acceptance of the gospel may be freely 
admitted. We receive Christianity as a traditional impartation, 
whereas the first disciples had to "be convinced by the direct 
evidence. We have not the advantage of an immediate percep- 
tion of the miraculous signs ; and we have the advantage of the 
history of the practical working of Christianity in the world. 
But when we narrowly examine the matter, we find that the 
evidential force of miracles is after all not essentially different 
now from what it was originally. If it is true that Christianity 
now is not for the sake of miracles, but miracles for the sake of 
Christianity, so was it equally true when Christ was living on 
the earth. If the miracles are by themselves now insufficient 
to convince all men of the truth of Christianity, so they were at 
the time they were performed; they were either disbelieved 
or at least were not accepted as establishing Jesus' Messianic 
claims. The apostles appealed, it is true, to miracles ; but 
they laid the chief stress on the message of salvation which 
Christ had come to bring. The great command was not, "Be- 
lieve in miracles," but, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." 
But the two things were not, and could not be, disjoined, as 
though the one could be accepted and the other doubted or re- 
jected. The wonderful works were everywhere and always 
treated as the natural and appropriate badge of the wonderful 
person. Christ, as an altogether unique man, unique in his re- 

136), while Tie admits the genuineness of some of Christ's miracles, yet says 
of Christ, that, " since in his death his glory has been made manifest to the 
world, faith needs miracles no longer, but rather may begin and continue in- 
dependently of them, so that, even if no record of any of his miracles had been 
preserved, his nature and the possibility of such a being would suffer no 
detriment." 



166 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

lation to God, unique in his relation to other men, was regarded 
as unique also in his relation to 'nature. Claiming to be the 
Son of God, the special messenger of God, the Mediator between 
God and man, he could not have been fully credited unless he 
had brought convincing proofs of the trustworthiness of his 
claims. His extraordinary claims needed to be matched and 
substantiated by extraordinary works. 

And how is the case different now ? We cannot, it is true, 
be eye-witnesses of Christ's miracles ; but neither can we be ear- 
witnesses of his words. And if we had been contemporaries of 
Christ, and had been witnesses of the physical miracles, yet if 
we had received no impression of the moral and spiritual mar- 
vellousness of his person, we should still have been unconvinced, 
just as the Jews were, who in spite of all they saw and heard 
remained unbelievers. There is indeed this difference between 
the present and the past, that the claims of Christianity to be 
divine have been confirmed by the lapse of time, by the history 
of its progress and beneficent effects. But this history is not 
sufficient to convince all ; many enemies of Christianity contend 
even that it has done more harm than good. The difference, 
therefore, between the present and the original relation of men 
to the claims of Christ, is practically null. Those who are 
ready to accept him in all his spiritual claims, but stumble at 
the miracles, simply fail to recognize the fact that the only 
Christ whom they know about is he who is brought to their 
knowledge by the Christian Church and the Christian Scriptures, 
and that this Christ is and always has been in the Christian 
Church regarded as a person of superhuman nature, and as pos- 
sessing supernatural powers. The person and the works have 
been indissolubly connected. They have supplemented and 
illustrated each other. The spiritual claims, according to all the 
evidence before us, never were in the first place admitted, ex- 
cept as confirmed by the supernatural manifestations. And 
from the beginning the two have been handed down together 
inseparably intertwined. What convinced the apostles was 
used by them as a means of convincing others. It was the 
resurrection of Christ which overcame their last fears, and be- 
came the crowning evidence to them that Jesus was the real 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIEACLES. 167 

Messiah. And this resurrection was used in their preaching as 
the argument which should persuade others than the direct 
witnesses of it. He, then, who accepts the Messianic claims, 
while rejecting or ignoring the supernatural proofs of those 
claims, is simply accepting the apostles' testimony as to Jesus' 
Messiahship, without accepting their testimony as to the facts 
which convinced them of his Messiahship. That is, he admits 
the truth, but does not admit the validity of that by which the 
truth has been established. This is obviously an untenable 
position. One may well believe that the sun is the body 
around which all the planets revolve, on the strength of astro- 
nomical testimony. He may accept that testimony without un- 
derstanding or even knowing the reasons which have convinced 
astronomers of the truth of this proposition. So far one may 
well go. And indeed this fairly represents the state of mind of 
a large part of mankind who accept the Copernican system. 
But if a man rises up and says that he accepts the Copernican 
doctrine as to the centrality of the sun in our system, but 
doubts the validity of the reasons which have led to the adop- 
tion of this doctrine, we can only say that such a state of mind 
is irrational. What ground can a man have for adopting the 
theory, so long as he questions the correctness of the decisive 
reasons which have led men to propound it ? Or suppose a man 
should say that he believes in the Copernican doctrine in spite 
of the reasons which have led astronomers to teach it, what 
should we think of him ? Yet this is a fair parallel to the atti- 
tude of those who profess to believe in Christ without believing 
in his miracles, or to believe in him in spite of the alleged mira- 
cles. Whoever takes this ground must sooner or later, if hon- 
est with himself, come to see that it really implies that he does 
not believe that the supernatural manifestations ever took place 
at all. If they were facts ; if God broke into the uniformity of 
the world's order by miraculous deeds, — it could not have been 
a matter of indifference whether the interruption was recognized 
as a reality ; it could not have been done without some extraor- 
dinary reason. 1 And if on the strength of those supernatural 

1 It is hard to see into the state of mind which can have led Professor 
Seeley {Natural Religion, p. 260), after he has elaborately argued the needless- 



168 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

demonstrations Christ became definitely accepted as the Re- 
deemer of men and has ever since been preached as such, the 
reasons which were sufficient to form the foundation of the Chris- 
tian church can never have lost their validity. If they have lost 
their validity for us, then they never deserved to have validity 
for the first believers. " To this complexion it must come at 
last." To believe in a Christ who wrought or perhaps wrought 
no miracles is to believe in a Christ whom nobody knows any- 
thing about. The Christ who has been made known to us is a 
supernatural and miracle-working being. He is one who veri- 
fied his claims to be the Son of God by his mighty works. If 
those mighty works ever had evidential force, they have it 
now. Either Christianity is a delusion, or "the supernatural is 
inseparable from it. But this leads us to another observation. 

6. The agnostic or negative attitude towards miracles must 
necessarily lead to the assumption that Christianity rests on a 
fraud. The attempt, and the pretense, indeed, may be simply 
to leave it an open question whether miracles occurred or not. 
The intention is to take Christianity simply as an operative sys- 
tem of truths and influences, and let it be its own recommenda- 
tion, irrespective of the disputed questions about the external 
accessories of its first introduction. But the historical fact is 
that Christianity has all along professed to stand on a super- 
natural foundation. Its Founder has all along been regarded 
as a supernatural being, proving his unique commission by 
miraculous deeds as well as by prophetic message. When it is 
said, as is done especially by the Piitschl school, 1 that the great- 
ness and uniqueness of Jesus must be argued from the effect 
which he has produced, rather than from any supernatural signs 
that marked his life, it seems to be forgotten that this effect, the 
power of Christianity over men, has come just from this sup- 
posed divinity of its origin and authority, — a divinity attested 
by divine proofs in the form of miraculous works wrought by 
Christ and his apostles. The unbroken traditions of the church 
agree with its oldest historical records in insisting that this was 

ness of a supernatural religion, to admit that, as " supplementing a natural one, 
it may be precious, nay, perhaps indispensable." 

1 Similarly Weisse, Philosophische Dogmatik, vol. iii. p. 306. 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 169 

the fact ; and on the ground of this fact a positive authority has 
been ascribed to Christianity over against all opposing doctrines 
and systems. The New Testament shows incontestably that a 
belief in Christ's superhuman nature and power pervaded all his 
early followers, and in connection with his unique purity and 
exaltedness of character and prophetic power of utterance was 
the condition of their accepting him as the Messiah and Saviour. 
Particularly his miraculous resurrection from the dead is every- 
where represented as the vital fact without which the Christian 
Church would not have been planted, and without a belief in 
which Christianity is not genuine. Critics of the most opposite 
schools agree in holding that the establishment of Christianity 
originally depended on the belief in Christ's resurrection. So 
much seems to be certain. All the New Testament writers lay 
the greatest stress on it as the turning point in the incipient 
history of Christianity. The Evangelists are on this point ex- 
ceptionally minute. The history of the first preaching of Chris- 
tianity represents the resurrection of Christ as the central fact 
insisted on as vouching for his divine commission. The apostles 
in their writings agree in the same. Everything conspires to 
show that Paul used not too strong an expression, when he 
declared that, if Christ was not raised, the faith of the Chris- 
tians was vain. 

When, therefore, we are told that men nowadays believe in 
Christianity, if at all, not on account of miracles, but in spite 
of them, and when this statement is designed to mean that the 
reality of the New Testament miracles is at least to be seriously 
doubted, if not flatly denied, it behooves us to consider just 
what this position implies. Either the alleged miracles were 
genuine, or they were not. We may be in doubt which horn 
of the dilemma to seize ; but our doubt does not alter the fact 
of the dilemma. It is indeed possible for a man to be a good 
Christian while beset by painful doubts respecting miracles. 
But an abnormal experience is no rule for men in general. 
Such a state of mind can, from the nature of the case, in any 
thinking and logical man, be only a transitional state. For the 
fact must be either that Jesus rose from the dead, or that he did 
not. He either did, or did not, work veritable miracles in con- 



170 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

formation of his Messianic claims. And the necessary conse- 
quences of admitting either side of the alternative must be 
accepted. Suppose, then, the fact to be that the alleged mira- 
cles were not real miracles. Be the explanation what it may 
be ; let it be imagined that Jesus and the apostles conspired to 
deceive, or that they were all together fanatics and self-deceived, 
or that the stories of the miracles were a legendary growth. 
Suppose what one may, the fact remains, that the founding of 
the Christian Church depended on the belief in Christ's super- 
natural power and authority. If, then, the miracles were not 
genuine, the successful starting of the Christian religion on its 
career depended on a delusion. And not only the starting of it, 
but its continued growth has rested on that same delusion. 
For, though the spiritual elements of Christianity may be dis- 
tinguished from the physical miracles which Christ is said to 
have wrought, yet the most vital truths of Christianity involve 
the ascription of supernaturalness to Christ's person and au- 
thority, — all that is essential, in short, in the doctrine of mira- 
cles. But even on the supposition that these conceptions of the 
uniqueness of Christ's nature and power are exaggerations ; that 
Jesus' moral teachings constituted the essence of his religion, 
and that all else may be discarded, — still the same fact confronts 
us : that the successful establishment of the Christian Church, 
with whatever of good it has brought to the world, depended on 
the belief in Christ's supernatural endowments. Such a rela- 
tion of things does not trouble one who, like Strauss, 1 regards 
Christianity in general as of little worth. But one who calls 
himself a Christian and really regards Christianity as embody- 
ing God's revealed will, if he rejects or doubts the reality of the 
miraculous attestation, has to face the difficulty, that a divine 
revelation, in order to gain credence and power in the world, 
had to be introduced by a deception. No matter how innocent 
the apostles may be imagined to have been ; no matter how 
ingeniously the origin of the notion of the resurrection and the 
other miracles may be explained. The blame of deliberate de- 
ception may, by a violent treatment of the records, possibly 
be rolled off from the human agents; but in any case it 

1 Leben Jesufilr das deutsche Volk, p. 601. 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 171 

cannot be rolled off from the divine agent. For if Christianity 
is a real revelation ; if that term is used, and no present decep- 
tion is intended in the use of it, — then, on the assumption that 
the miracles were not facts, our only conclusion must be that 
God arranged that they should be thought to be facts, in order 
that he might accomplish what otherwise would have been 
impossible; that is, he had to arrange that the kingdom of 
divine truth should be indebted to a lie for its introduction 
and firm foundation in the world. 1 

This is the inevitable conclusion, if we adopt the one side of the 
alternative. If one is not ready to take that, there is no legiti- 
mate escape from taking the other, and admitting heartily that 
the miracles were real facts. When one says that he believes 
in Christianity in spite of the miracles, not on account of them, 
meaning that he has no opinion about them, but would prefer 
it if there were no demand made on him to believe in them, 

1 " Revelation, then, even if it does not need the truth of miracles for the 
benefit of their proof, still requires it in order not to be crushed under the 
weight of their falsehood." — Mozley, On Miracles, 6th ed., p. 16. The only 
plausible escape from this conclusion is to say that God, in making the estab- 
lishment of Christianity depend on the belief in the reality of miracles, was 
only accommodating himself to the weakness of man. God often overrules evil 
for good, but without thereby approving the evil. If the gospel could not 
gain a foothold in the world without being supposed to be accompanied by 
miracles, was it not better that it should gain a foothold through such a 
delusion than not at all? 

The reply is obvious. The objection assumes that miracles not only did 
not, but could not, occur. For if they were possible, and if a belief in them 
was required in order to the introduction of the true religion, then God would 
surely have wrought real ones, rather than to have allowed his truth to rest on 
a delusive belief in unreal ones. But that God could work miracles is not de- 
nied by any genuine Christian theist. Consequently the dilemma remains : the 
miracles were either a fact or a fraud. 

Moreover, the allegation that a delusive belief in miracles was necessary in 
order to the introduction of Christianity, is self-destructive. The notion that 
the stories of the miracles were a legendary growth (the ordinary form of the 
skeptical theory at present) presupposes not only that Jesus himself wrought 
no miracles, but that in his day no one supposed him to have wrought them. 
Therefore it has to be assumed that Christianity, after all, did get a foothold 
without a belief in miracles, and that only its later propagation was promoted 
by the belief. But if the belief was not necessary in order to the establishment 
of Christianity, then it was not necessary in order to the propagation of it. 



172 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

then we can only say that such an attitude towards the miracles 
differs from a downright denial of them only in so far as it is the 
offspring of an indolent or illogical mind. Since the fact can- 
not be equivocal, since the miracles must have been either reali- 
ties or delusions, an intelligent mind, alert to see the necessary 
bearings of this alternative, cannot long remain in a state of in- 
decision. No vague generalities about the difficulty of denning 
miracles, or of ascertaining the exact facts of the gospel histories, 
can get rid of this inexorable dilemma, that, so long as one ac- 
cepts Christianity as a divinely revealed religion, he must hold 
that the miracles were either a fact or a fraud. But to regard 
the introduction of Christianity as accomplished by a fraud is 
of course inconsistent with any honest faith in it as a really 
divine and special revelation. If one nevertheless rebels against 
the acceptance of the miraculous history, it only remains for him 
to treat Christianity as nothing but a purely human growth, and 
the miracles as the offspring of a more or less unconscious im- 
agination or exaggeration. In other words, there is no middle 
ground between the position of such a man as Strauss, and that 
of him who accepts Christianity as a genuine revelation, and the 
supernatural as an essential and indispensable part and proof of 
the revelation. 

An agnostic or skeptical attitude towards the Christian mira- 
cles is, therefore, intrinsically at war with genuine acceptance of 
Christianity, and can be assumed by a professed Christian only 
inconsistently, or at the expense of rejecting, with the miracles, 
fundamental elements of the Christian system. The refutation 
of this negative attitude towards the supernatural has inciden- 
tally indicated what the positive attitude must be. Miracles 
must be regarded as having an important evidential value. If 
they were really performed, they could not have been without a 
purpose. To suppose them to have been useless, or to have 
served even as a hinderance in the way of men's accepting 
the salutary truths of the gospel, is to accuse God of pure 
wantonness. 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIKACLES. 173 



CHAPTEK VI. 

THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES (Continued). 

\\ 7"E come, then, to the second of the above-mentioned views 
* * respecting the evidential value of miracles, and ask, 
II. Does faith in Christianity depend on antecedent faith in 
the alleged miracles of Christ ? 

The assurance which we have reached, that miracles have a 
positive evidential worth, does not necessarily imply an affir- 
mative answer to this question. On the contrary, there are 
weighty reasons for answering it in the negative. 

If we take Christian faith in a wide and loose sense, mean- 
ing by it merely a general assent to the excellence of Christian 
morality, it is manifest that men can believe in it, while dis- 
believing or doubting the genuineness of the miracles. They 
can, for they do. But it may be said, and justly said, that this 
is not the whole of genuine Christian faith. It is not faith 
such as Jesus himself required, and such as the Christian 
Church has always regarded as necessary in order to constitute 
a man in the proper sense a Christian. 

We may, however, observe further that even genuine faith in 
Jesus Christ as the Saviour of sinners may be exercised by those 
who do not first make a study of the apologetic value of mir- 
acles, and come to their faith by that road. It may he, for it is. 
The young who receive their knowledge of the way of salvation 
directly from the instruction of their elders do not need, and 
are not able, to examine the evidences of the genuineness of the 
Gospel miracles before they can surrender themselves to Christ 
in penitent trust. Doubtless they are taught also to believe 
the stories of the miraculous deeds. But this belief need not 
precede the other, so as to constitute the indispensable founda- 
tion of it. 

Furthermore, if we look at the subject from the more directly 
apologetic point of view, there is an infelicity in making a con- 



174 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

viction of the genuineness of the reported miracles serve as 
the indispensable antecedent of Christian faith. We meet at 
once this serious difficulty : that the argument for the genuine- 
ness of the miracles, however plausible and cogent it may seem 
to one favorably inclined to Christianity, cannot, when taken 
apart from the character and professions of the alleged miracle- 
worker, be made convincing to one who is predisposed against 
both Christianity and stories of miraculous events. Marvels 
are not necessarily miracles ; and experience is so full of strange 
things and of plausible, though deceptive, pretensions to miracu- 
lous power, that one can frame, if he will, some explanation of 
any alleged miracle rather than admit its genuineness. The 
miraculous events alleged to have accompanied the introduction 
of Christianity are now, moreover, far distant. Even the oldest 
vouchers for their occurrence cannot be proved to have been 
eye-witnesses of the events ; or even if they were, how is it to be 
demonstrated that the alleged miracles were not fraudulent per- 
formances of impostors ? One may, with Paley, 1 show how 
much better attested the Christian miracles are than the Pagan 
or ecclesiastical ones. Still, at the best, the difference is only 
one of degree ; and even if one find himself unable to explain 
away the apparent miracles and show just what the actual facts 
were, he can yet frame hypotheses. The immense presumption 
which all intelligent men admit to lie against the occurrence of 
all miracles, must be overcome before one can be expected to 
give a favorable attention to the evidence for the occurrence of 
any particular miracle. But even if that has been overcome, 
and one feels the need of a divine revelation and of a super- 
natural attestation of it, yet the question is not settled, what 
alleged revelation, and what pretended miraculous accompani- 
ments of one, are to be accepted as genuine. Not only must 
the general presumption against miracles be overcome, but a 
presumption in favor of some particular medium of a revelation 
must be created, else his pretended miracles will be rejected 
as a specious delusion, even though they cannot be explained. 
We cannot, therefore, fully assent to the position taken by 
Dr. W. M. Taylor in his contention against Archbishop Trench. 

1 Eoidmces of Christianity, part i., prop. ii. chap. ii. 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIKACLES. 175 

In reply to the objection that " power cannot in the nature of 
things confirm truth," he says, <: That all depends on whose 
power it is. Now, in this instance it is the power of God ; and 
the moral perfection of Deity gives its own character to the 
forth-putting of that power in confirmation of the claims of 
him at whose word the miracle is wrought." 1 But this argu- 
ment presupposes that the fact of a miracle wrought by di- 
vine power has been fully demonstrated, and is accepted as 
fact. If it be assumed that God has commissioned a prophet 
to work miracles in connection with the prophetic message, 
why, then of course this peculiar display of power must nat- 
urally be regarded as a divine confirmation of the spoken 
word. The difficulty, however, lies further back. How is one 
to be made indubitably certain that the alleged miracle is a 
display of divine power ? When the enemies of Christ ac- 
cuse him of being an agent of Beelzebub rather than of God, 
or if some one should affirm that his marvelous deeds were 
nothing but skilful acts of jugglery, how are such men to be 
persuaded that they are in the wrong ? If the character of the 
pretended prophet, and the nature of his utterances, are not 
such as to create a presumption in his favor ; if the miracles, 
apparently real, are the work of one whose demeanor is that of 
a mountebank or of a trifler ; if he makes the impression of 
not being an honest, earnest, and God-fearing man, — shall this 
impression go for nothing in one's judgment on the question, 
whether his extraordinary deeds are the work of supernatural 
power ? Would it be possible for one not to be influenced in 
his judgment respecting the apparent miracles by this ante- 
cedent judgment concerning the man ? 

If apparent miracles were always real ; if the genuineness of 
them were always something self-evident and incontrovertible ; 
and if all men, even the most depraved, were ready to accept, 
as of divine authority, whatever a miracle- worker says, — the 
case would be comparatively simple. But the problem is not 
so simple. It is true, as Dr. Taylor says, 2 that the depraved 
human conscience cannot be made " the standard by which all 

1 The Gospel Miracles, Lecture VI. p. 174. 

2 Ibid., p. 192. 



176 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

that claims to be truth coming from God is to be tried." But 
the human conscience, depraved though it is, is able to discern 
between knavery and honesty. The very argument under con- 
sideration presupposes, moreover, that the natural man has a 
belief in God, that he acknowledges a message from God to be 
true and authoritative, and that he recognizes a miracle to 
be a work of God. Unless all this is presupposed, miraculous 
demonstrations would be lost on him. A certain degree of re- 
ligious and moral sense is essential, in order that a man may 
believe in a miracle at all, and in its power to authenticate 
the deliverances of those through or for whom it is wrought. 
Suppose now, for example, that a man should perform marvels 
apparently as great as those attributed to Christ, but should 
undertake on the strength of them to teach that murder, and 
theft, and malevolence are laudable, or that the true Deity is 
to be found in the chimpanzee, should we be bound to accept 
his doctrines because of his miracles ? But, it may be replied, 
such a man's performances cannot be real miracles, but only a 
juggler's tricks. Very well ; but why do we presume them to 
be mere tricks ? These tricks may, as facts show, seem to the 
ordinary observer to be quite as marvelous, quite as much be- 
yond human power, as any of the recorded miracles of Christ. 1 
Why should those who witnessed the latter have been ex- 
pected to accept them as veritable miracles, and as authenti- 
cating the word of the miracle-worker, while those of the other 
are regarded with suspicion, and, even though inexplicable, are 
yet assumed to be mere tricks of legerdemain ? There is but 
one answer: The moral character of Jesus, his benevolence 
and sincerity, his general trustworthiness, is supposed to have 
been a guarantee that he would not deceive men by pretending 
to be possessed of supernatural power, when he was in reality 
only practising sleight of hand. This element is essential in 
any question concerning the genuineness of an apparent miracle. 

1 Vide, e. g., an account of Indian Juggling in Once a Week, Jan. 1861, 
where it is narrated how a coin was apparently transformed into a snake, 
and a girl murdered and restored to life. Every one who has witnessed the 
exploits of prestidigitators can testify to the reality of things which seem to 
defy all explanation, except on the supposition of magical power. 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 17T 

If the ostensible miracle -worker teaches immorality, and ad- 
duces his miracles as evidence of his divine commission to 
teach it, in such a case we conclude at once that the claim of 
a divine commission is false, and that the miracles are tricks. 
Here the doctrine certainly is held to disprove the miracle. 
We do not deem it even necessary to expose the nature of the 
tricks ; we may be unable to do so. We simply take it for 
granted that they are tricks. 

What a man is and what he says must, therefore, go very far 
in determining our judgment as to the validity of his claim to 
be a supernaturally endowed messenger from God. It does not 
follow that men, especially irreligious men, can determine a 
priori just what doctrines a prophet may or must preach. But 
they may be very sure concerning certain doctrines, that a 
prophet of God will not preach them. And equally true is it 
that the character of a professed prophet's utterances may pre- 
possess men in his favor before he has ever wrought any mir- 
acles, and predispose them to believe in the genuineness of the 
miracles when he does perform them. The " authority " with 
which Jesus taught (Matt. vii. 29), and " the gracious words 
which proceeded out of his mouth " (Luke iv. 22), prepared the 
Jews to give credit to his mighty works. 

Archbishop Trench says, 1 that " miracles cannot be appealed 
to absolutely and finally in proof of the doctrine which the 
worker of them proclaims ; and God's word expressly declares 
the same (Deut. xiii. 1-5)." Dr. Taylor replies 2 that the signs 
or wonders spoken of in the passage referred to are not genuine 
miracles, and that Trench himself admits 3 that, " while the 
works of Antichrist and his organs are not mere tricks and jug- 
gleries, neither are they miracles in the highest sense of the 
word." Hence it is concluded that the case supposed by Moses 
does not affect the position that works " possessing all the essen- 
tial elements of the miracle do absolutely and simply prove a 
doctrine." Now, whatever may be said on the disputed ques- 
tion whether, according to the Bible, Satan and his minions do 
perform real miracles, the point of Trench's argument is that, 
in view of the striking and plausible character of these demon- 

1 Notes on Miracles, p. 27. 2 Gospel Miracles, p. 193. 3 Ibid., p. 26. 

12 



178 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

strations, the decision of the question whether a pretended 
miracle does possess all the essential elements of the miracle 
depends, in part at least, on the nature of the doctrine which 
claims to be authenticated by it. Otherwise, unless those who 
witness the pretended miracles are able to detect the secret of 
the magic or legerdemain by which they are performed, they 
cannot be blamed for following after every one who seems to be 
invested with miraculous power. In reference to the case of 
Deut. xiii. 1-5, Dr. Taylor says 1 that " the appeal here is not to 
the moral nature of man at all, but to the consistency of God 
himself. The Hebrews had already received a revelation mirac- 
ulously attested from God, and the argument is that, as God 
cannot deny or contradict himself, any wonders or signs wrought 
in opposition to the precepts of that revelation are to be re- 
garded as impostures." But this reply proceeds on the sup- 
position that the false prophet against whom the people are 
warned is going to represent his sign or wonder as wrought by 
Jehovah; otherwise there would be no question of Jehovah's 
consistency with himself. But this supposition is manifestly 
wrong. The false prophet who seeks to draw the people away 
from Jehovah and to " go after other gods " would be little better 
than a fool, if he should pretend that Jehovah enabled him to per- 
form the miracles on the ground of which he invites them to for- 
sake Jehovah ! No ; the false prophet would of course represent 
the "other gods" as enabling him to work the wonders ; and so 
the question before the people would be whether to believe the 
new prophet or the old one. There would be no question of God's 
consistency, but simply the question whether Jehovah is the 
God, or whether some other God is to be accepted instead of 
him. Of course the accepting of the new one would involve 
the forsaking of the old one ; but the people might be led to 
think that not the new signs, but the old ones, were deceitful. 
Just because the pretended miracle was liable to be very spe- 
cious and dazzling, while the recollection or tradition of the 
Mosaic miracles was liable to grow dim and unimpressive, there- 
fore Moses enjoins that the test should not be the mere appar- 
ent miracles, but the doctrine of those who wrought them. 

1 Gospel Miracles, p. 198. 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 179 

III. We conclude, therefore, that the evidential value of 
miracles cannot be detached from the personal character and 
the teachings of the miracle-worker, but that the two co-operate. 
The doctrine proves the miracle, and the miracle proves the 
doctrine. 

By this is meant that the doctrine — the prophetic commission 
— is self -evidencing, but not in such a degree that the accom- 
panying miracles are a superfluous accessory, to be believed in 
indeed because wrought by one whose word has proved him a 
prophet, but themselves unnecessary as a proof of the prophet's 
divine vocation. A useless miracle would be an abnormity. 
The more clearly it should be recognized as useless, the more 
doubtful would be the reality of it. God does not trifle with 
the laws of nature or with us. 

Scarcely more satisfactory is the view of those who believe 
indeed in miracles, not, however, as having evidential value, 
but simply as being just what might have been expected from 
so wonderful a person as Jesus was. This view is now much in 
vogue. According to it Jesus wrought miracles, not for the 
purpose of substantiating his claims, but merely because such 
work was, as it were, the spontaneous and normal expression of 
his nature and character. 1 

There is plausibility and force in this representation. Assum- 
ing the essentially supernatural character of Jesus' origin and 
person, we find it comparatively easy to believe that he could 
do supernatural deeds. We may say truly that in such a be- 
ing miracles seem quite appropriate and normal, provided there 
is occasion for performing them, But this suggests the diffi- 
culty which besets the view in question. What is meant, when 
it is affirmed that " miracles were but the natural accompani- 
ments of the Christian revelation," that they were " a constitu- 

1 See above (p. 127) the references to Trench, Coleridge, Thomas Arnold, 
Maurice. Similarly Professor Ladd {Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 311), "The 
supernatural contents, inclusive of the miraculous, belong to the very essence 
of Christianity, and can no more be separated from it than can the principle of 
life from the living organism." And on p. 316 he speaks of miracles as "the 
natural result of his superhuman power." Page 315, the power of healing is 
regarded "as the normal product of his personality." Cf. also J. Stoughton, 
Xafure and Value of the Miraculous Testimony to Christianity, p. 46. 



180 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

tive element of the revelation of God in Christ," that their 
absence " would have been far more wonderful than their pres- 
ence ? " There seems to be here a want of clearness of concep- 
tion. Is it meant that Jesus wrought miracles because he 
could not help it — because he was driven to it by a sort of 
natural necessity ? Doubtless not. But if not, then the only 
alternative is that he wrought miracles freely, and for an ethical 
reason. What, then, was the reason why he wrought them? 
Probably the answer would be : For the purpose of doing good. 
But he could do good, he could give expression to his benevo- 
lent disposition, without resorting to supernatural power. No 
doubt he could do many acts of kindness through miraculous 
agency which he could not have done by ordinary means. But 
is it meant that he was bound to do, and did do, all that it was 
possible for supernatural power to do by way of beneficent 
action ? Hardly this ; for if so, then we should have to assume 
that God, being possessed of supernatural power, is bound to ex- 
ercise it miraculously all the time and in all possible ways for 
the sake of alleviating the evils of the world. If ordinarily and 
in general God sees fit to manifest his benevolence, and to let 
men manifest their benevolence, only through the uniformly 
operating forces of nature, why did he make an exception in the 
case of Jesus Christ, and in him manifest his benevolence in a 
supernatural way ? The question has all the more point, inas- 
much as the miraculous deeds of Christ had to do almost ex- 
clusively with the relief of physical pain, whereas his mission 
was primarily and chiefly a purely spiritual one. 

As a manifestation of benevolence, then, the exercise of 
miraculous power could not accomplish more than unmiracu- 
lous beneficence. The doing of the miracles did not prove that 
Christ had more love than other men ; it only proved that he 
had more power. And so we are brought back to the position 
that the miracles had primarily an evidential value ; they were 
an evidence of the superior power, or superior nature, of Christ, 
or at least of a superior divine commission. For we should 
bear in mind that ultimately the power to work miracles is as- 
cribed, even by Christ himself, to God. It was " by the finger 
of God" (Luke xi. 20) that he professed to cast out demons; 






THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIKACLES. 181 

the raising of Lazarus he represented as an answer to prayer, 
and as a manifestation of the glory of God (John xi. 40-42). 
And his resurrection, the crowning miracle of all, is almost 
uniformly declared to be the work of God. 1 

Moreover, if the miracles of Jesus are to be regarded as a sort 
of outflow or efflorescence of his superhuman nature, what shall 
we say of the miracles wrought by his apostles ? They are uni- 
formly declared to have had power to work the same kind of 
miracles as Jesus wrought himself, 2 not excepting the raising of 
the dead. 3 Are these miracles to be explained as simply the 
natural outworking of the unique character and endowments of 
the apostles ? Plainly not ; their miraculous power was a power 
conferred ; they were the commissioned agents of a higher au- 
thority. 4 Now, doubtless, Jesus' relation to miraculous works 
is pictured as somewhat different from that of his apostles. He 
himself it is who bestows on them the miraculous power. In 
his own working of miracles he often, perhaps most often, seems 
to speak as if the power inhered in himself, 5 even the power to 
raise himself from the dead. 6 But such representations find a 
natural explanation in the intimate union with the Father which 
Jesus always ascribed to himself, and which the apostles always 
ascribed to him. If he wrought miracles by his own power, 
then he did it by virtue of his being possessed of divine power. 
Mere eminence in intellectual or moral excellence constitutes no 
sufficient ground for ascribing to any mere man the power inde- 
pendently to work a miracle. 

But this brings us back to the starting-point. The doctrine 
under consideration is, that in so wonderful a person wonderful 
deeds are to be expected and excite no surprise. The answer is : 
Yes ; in a remarkable man remarkable deeds may be expected, 
but not necessarily miraculous deeds. Is it a general truth that 
the more gifted or spiritual a man is, the more nearly he comes 
to working miracles ? But even if it were admitted that Jesus 

1 Acts iii. 15, 26, ii. 24, v. 30, xiii. 30 ; Rom. f. 4 ; 1 Cor. xv. 15, etc. 

2 Matt. x. 1 ; Mark iii. 15, vi. 7 ; Luke ix. 1, 2 ; Acts iii. 1-8, ix. 33, 34, 
xiv. 8-10. 8 Acts ix. 36-40. 4 See Note 2 and Acts iii. 16. 

6 E. g., Matt. ix. 5 ; Mark v. 30 ; Luke v. 23, 24, vi. 5-10, viii. 46. 
6 Johnx. 18: cf. ii. 19. 



182 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

was so unique that veritable miracles might be expected of him, 
the question must still be asked, How do we know that he was 
so unique ? What does the conviction of this uniqueness rest on ? 
Plainly, this cannot be quietly assumed without reason. And 
the reason can be nothing else than the evidence afforded by 
tradition and the New Testament. The uniqueness claimed for 
him has reference especially to two points : (1) his unique moral 
character, and (2) his unique relation to God and men. Now, 
one may indeed forcibly argue the sinless excellence of Jesus 
on grounds which are independent of his supernatural power. 1 
Mere power would certainly be an inadequate proof. But, on 
the other hand, so stupendous an exception to all experience as 
absolute freedom from sin could hardly be made convincingly 
certain, if there were only the evidence of an exceptionally good 
life, and the absence of all self-accusation. He also, it is true, 
asserted his own perfection. 2 But many other even good men 
have done the same ; and the few utterances of his which seem 
to affirm his absolute sinlessness might, if necessary, be under- 
stood to signify only a relative perfection. In like manner, it 
might be said that the absence, in the record, of all confession 
of sin and petition for pardon on his part is only a negative 
argument, and does not prove that in his solitary prayers no 
such confession was ever made. Undoubtedly Jesus must have 
been either an enthusiast with remarkable powers of persuasion, 
or else a man of wonderful purity and exaltedness of character. 
Undoubtedly the general impression produced by the records, 
and confirmed by tradition, is that he was no self-deluded fan- 
atic, but a person of altogether exceptional virtue and moral 
power. Undoubtedly it seems most reasonable, when we con- 
sider his rare combination of excellences and the extraordinary 
claims and professions which he made, to conclude that his dis- 
ciples were justified in declaring him to have been free from sin. 3 
But when we reach this conclusion, there meets us at once the 

1 As Ullmann, Sinless Character of Jesus ; Dorner, Jesu siindlose Vollkom- 
menheit ; Schaff, The Person of Christ ; Row, The Jesus of the Evangelists; 
Bushnell, Nature and the Supernatural. 

2 John viii. 29, 46 ; cf. iv. 34, v. 36, vi. 38. 

8 Heb. iv. 15, vii. 26 ; 1 Pet. ii. 22, i. 19; 1 John hi. 5 ; 2 Cor. v. 21. 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 183 

objection that there is an overwhelming presumption against the 
proposition that any mere man, enjoying ordinary privileges and 
subjected to ordinary temptations, has ever passed through life 
absolutely free from sinful emotions, desires, and actions. If 
any one has ever so deported himself as to make the impression 
of being such a unique exception to all the experience of the 
world, then the further impression cannot but force itself on 
the mind, that such a man is not an ordinary man in his 
antecedents, environments, and endowments. 

And, accordingly, this is precisely what the records say of 
Jesus of Nazareth. He is pictured to us as a man not only 
unique in moral eminence, but unique also in his origin, endow- 
ments, and commission. He is called the only-begotten Son of 
God, miraculously conceived, a person who reflects in himself 
the divine character and glory, and is specially anointed and set 
apart by God as the one Eedeemer of men. In other words, the 
proof of absolute uniqueness in respect of holiness is not com- 
plete and satisfactory until it is confirmed by the evidence of 
uniqueness in respect of nature, prerogative, and relation. 

But how is this uniqueness of nature and office to be itself 
proved ? Is it enough that Jesus himself declared that he was 
thus unique ? He having by his irreproachable conduct estab- 
lished his reputation for uprightness and veracity, would his 
bare word have sufficed to produce conviction, when he laid 
claim to be the Son of God in an altogether exclusive sense, 
and demanded of all men that they should come to him for 
salvation ? It might, indeed, be plausibly urged that, if Jesus 
had gained the confidence of men, or at least of his followers, to 
such an extent that they ascribed to him absolute faultlessness, 
then any affirmation which he made concerning himself must 
have been accepted as trustworthy. But we must remember 
that "confidence is a plant of slow growth." Jesus, in the 
short time during which he plied his vocation, could hardly 
have compelled universal and undoubting confidence in his 
absolute perfection. We know that the people in general had 
no such confidence in him. Many who followed him for a time 
fell away from him. 1 There is no evidence that even his most 

1 John vi. 66. 



184 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

intimate disciples at first, or even up to his death, regarded him 
as absolutely sinless. A man's moral character is something 
which can reveal itself only by slow degrees. And though 
transcendent goodness and purity would doubtless anywhere 
soon make a deep impression, yet the general presumption that 
every man has faults and imperfections would in any case stub- 
bornly assert itself against any claim or suggestion of perfect 
faultlessness. And therefore we are not surprised at finding 
that the apostles and friends of Christ did not hesitate to re- 
monstrate with him, and to question the wisdom or propriety 
of his conduct. 1 Such indications are, indeed, not numerous ; 
those who attached themselves to him undoubtedly felt more 
and more the peculiar power and sublimity of his character. 
But it was not until after his resurrection that they unquali- 
fiedly asserted his perfect freedom from sin. 

How, then, did the disciples of Jesus become fully convinced 
of his Messiahship and of his peculiar dignity and unique office ? 
All the indications of the Gospels are to the effect that the con- 
viction, however early the intimations and hopes may have been, 
was of gradual growth, and that it was not a full and unshaka- 
ble assurance till after the resurrection. He was not such a 
Messiah as had been commonly expected ; and though at his 
birth and baptism he was heralded as a Eedeemer, and though 
some persons seem early to have attached themselves to him in 
the faith that he was really the expected one, yet the faith ap- 
pears to have been a wavering one. Jesus' own claim was such 
as required to be verified by a continued experience of fellow- 
ship with him and observation of his deportment and work. 
And prominent among the evidences expected and received were 
miraculous manifestations. These manifestations could, it is 
true, not be implicitly trusted as divine, unless confirmed by a 
previous confidence in the trustworthiness of him in whose be- 
half they were made ; but in connection with this confidence 
they served as an emphatic ratification of the Messianic claim. 
That the Jews generally looked for some miraculous demon- 
strations as accompaniments of the appearance of the Christ is 
evident from the question in John vii. 31, "When the Christ 
1 E. g., Mark iv. 38, viii. 32 ; Luke x. 40 ; John xiii. 6. 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 185 

shall come, will he do more signs than those which this man 
hath done ? " and from the narrative of the effect of the raising 
of Lazarus (xi. 46-48), and of the miracle of the loaves and 
fishes (vi. 15). And that the disciples of Christ were influenced 
by the same expectation is evident from John ii. 11, where, 
after the miracle of the wine, it is said, " This beginning of his 
signs did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested his glory ; 
and his disciples believed on him." Had they not believed on 
him before ? In the previous chapter we read that Andrew and 
another man had followed Jesus, trusting in the assurance of 
John the Baptist ; that Andrew reported to Peter that he had 
found the Messiah (i. 41) ; and that Philip and Xathanael at 
once accepted him as such (i. 45, 49). Now it is said of these 
same disciples that in consequence of Jesus' first miracle they 
believed on him. Evidently the meaning is that the faith 
already existing was confirmed by this display of miraculous 
power. But even this faith, though continually strengthened 
by personal fellowship and by repeated miracles, was not so 
strong but that the crucifixion staggered it. The two disciples 
who walked to Emmaus had "hoped that it was he which 
should redeem Israel" (Luke xxiv. 21), but the hope had evi- 
dently turned into despair. The apostles were dismayed by the 
tragical end of their Master's life, and could hardly be persuaded 
that he had risen from the dead. Once persuaded of this, how- 
ever, they regained their faith, and never again lost it. 

Now it should be observed that this shock which had come to 
the apostles' faith in Jesus' Messiahship must have affected also 
their faith in his absolute trustworthiness. He had declared 
himself to be the Messiah, the Son of God, the Licht of the 
world. If now there had come into their minds a doubt as to 
the fact of his being the Messiah, then there must necessarily 
have come a doubt as to his truthfulness in declaring himself to 
be the Messiah. The two things were indissolubly bound to- 
gether. Christ's miracles and his life had worked together pre- 
viously in producing and strengthening the disciples' confidence 
in his uniqueness both of character and of commission. And 
now the resurrection fully restores and finally seals their confi- 
dence in both these things. How the evidential function of 



186 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

miracles can be questioned by one who credits the New Testa- 
ment, it is difficult to see. The testimony is unanimous that 
the miracles wrought by Jesus and for him were efficacious and 
even indispensable in bringing about the final unwavering con- 
viction that Jesus was the one sinless man and perfect Ke- 
deemer. John wrote : " These [signs] are written, that ye may 
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." * Paul wrote 
that Jesus was " declared to be the Son of God with power . . . 
by the resurrection from the dead." 2 To the Athenians he said 
that God had ordained Jesus to be the one by whom he would 
judge the world, " whereof he hath given assurance unto all men 
in that he hath raised him from the dead." 3 Peter on the day 
of Pentecost declared that Jesus had been '''approved of God 
... by mighty works, and wonders, and signs," 4 foremost 
among which he put Jesus' resurrection. 5 Jesus himself is 
represented as directly appealing to his miraculous power as a 
proof of his authority to forgive sins. 6 

Assuming the substantial authenticity of the New Testament 
we are, therefore, forced to conclude that the miracles, especially 
the resurrection of Christ, did serve an evidential purpose. It 
is consequently hard to see how such a man as Professor Bruce 7 
can argue as he does in opposition to Canon Mozley. 8 The 
disciples of Christ, he says, " seem to have arrived at the con- 
viction that Jesus was the Holy One through an intimate 
knowledge of his character made possible by habitual compan- 
ionship," whereas " the conventional saints and sages of the time, 
giving heed to the miracles, . . . were not only not convinced 
thereby, but arrived at the opposite conclusion," namely, that 
he was in fellowship with Beelzebub. 

But what a pitfall the Christian apologist is preparing for 
himself by such a conception ! According to Dr. Bruce the 
miracles were real, but were not needed in order to the faith of 
the disciples, and exercised a positively baneful influence on the 
unbelievers. What good reason was there, then, for the miracles 

1 John xx. 31. 2 Rom. i. 4. 3 Acts xvii. 31. 4 Acts ii. 22. 

5 Acts ii. 24-36. Cf. iii. 15, iv. 10, x. 40-43 ; 1 Pet. i. 3. 

6 Matt. ix. 6 (Mark ii. 10; Luke v. 24). Cf. also uote 2 on p. 157. 

7 Miraculous Element in the Gospels, pp. 2S8 sqq. 8 On Miracles, p. 11. 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIEACLES. 187 

at all ? Dr. Bruce says, to be sure, that the disciples " saw in 
all his acts, miraculous or otherwise, the self-manifestation of 
the Christ, the Son of the living God." 1 No doubt, if he 
wrought miracles, they were in harmony with his character. 
No doubt, in working them he followed holy impulses of benevo- 
lence, and was not impelled merely by a cold calculation as to 
their evidential effect. But the question is still unanswered, 
What sufficient reason was there for working them ? Accord- 
ing to the theory now before us they were not necessary to the 
full self-manifestation of Jesus; they accomplished nothing 
which could not have been accomplished without them in the 
way of making obvious his dignity, divine commission, love, and 
wisdom. If this is indeed the fact, then, in case the miracles 
are held to have been real, they appear to have accomplished no 
substantial end except to furnish a stumbling-block both to the 
philosopher and to the intelligent Christian, and to justify the 
affirmation that miracles are a burden rather than a help to 
the Christian apologist. And in this case the conclusion can 
hardly be avoided, that the alleged miracles were after all no 
miracles at all. 

What, then, is the correct view as to the use of miracles ? 
Manifestly this : that miracles have a positive and indispensable 
evidential worth, but not anterior to, and independent of, the 
evidence afforded by personal character and testimony. There 
must be a strong confidence in the general integrity and veracity 
of the professed messenger of God, before his alleged miracles 
can be accepted as genuine. But the more extraordinary his 
claims are, the more need is there of extraordinary attestation. 
Apparent sincerity, simplicity, and purity prepare the way for 
faith in whatever he may affirm ; but if he professes to have a 
special divine commission, then he needs to be "approved of 
God by mighty works and wonders and signs." He who pro- 
fesses to be the bearer of an authoritative revelation from God 
needs a divine authentication. Whatever may be true respect- 
ing the power of prophets in general to work miracles, 2 when- 

1 Miraculous Element in the Gospels, p. 289. 

2 John the Baptist wrought no miracles ; and of many of the O. T. pro- 
phets there is no record that they claimed or exercised this power. Yet they 



188 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

ever one undertakes to introduce, as divine and authoritative, 
something new in doctrine, legislation, or redemption, some 
warrant must be produced over and above the prophet's own 
assertion that he represents the divine will. The introduction 
of a new dispensation, the making known of truths concerning 
God and the future life which neither nature nor past reve- 
lations have made clear and certain to men, — this requires 
some objective evidence that the professed prophet has been 
specially authorized to do this peculiar work. One who pro- 
fesses to be commissioned to make such disclosures must expect 
to be challenged to present his credentials. An ambassador of 
the Great King must bring some other token of a plenipoten- 
tiary commission than a good personal character. 

When, therefore, it is said that the doctrine must prove the 
miracle, the meaning is not that the doctrines are all self-attest- 
ing, so that the miracles, though attested by the doctrines, have 
no real use, and become, rather, a burden to the Christian apol- 
ogist. The meaning is, that the character and teachings of the 
professed messenger of God must commend themselves to the 
moral judgment of men, else not even apparent miracles will 
be able to secure him recognition as an inspired prophet. The 
more pure, sincere, unselfish, and elevated he seems to be, the 
more readily will he be credited, when he lays claim to special 
authority and professes to prove it by supernatural power. A 
part of the proof of the genuineness of the miracles lies in the 
evident trustworthiness of the one who professes to work them. 
But another, and an essential, part of the proof is the need of 

-were acknowledged to be true prophets. Hence it is sometimes argued that a 
miraculous attestation can never be pronounced essential. (So, e. g., in the 
anonymous pamphlet, Positives Christenthum und orthodoxer Pietismus, p. 47, 
one of the many productions connected with the controversy respecting Pro- 
fessor Bender of Bonn, 1883-84). As to this, however, it is to be considered 
that the prophets in general, in so far as they were feared and followed, owed 
their authority to a previous supernatural revelation, which they were inspired 
to expound and enforce. They rose up amongst a people who recognized the 
genuineness of this revelation. In so far as they were merely preachers, enfor- 
cing the obligation of a law already received as divinely given, they needed no 
miraculous power to enable them to make an impression on the consciences 
of their hearers. 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 189 

miracles, which is felt when the prophet makes extraordinary 
claims. We would not believe in the genuineness of the mira- 
cles, unless the general tenor of the man's life and teachings were 
good ; we would not credit his claims to special authority, unless 
we see evidence that God has given him a special authorization. 
The advantage of this conception of the evidential character 
of miracles over the other is obvious. If the belief in the reality 
of a revelation is made to depend on an antecedent demonstra- 
tion of the genuineness of the miracles wrought in attestation of 
it, the faith can only be as strong as the demonstration is irre- 
fragable. Every defect in the evidence, every possibility of a 
natural explanation of the alleged miracle, every difficulty of 
distinguishing the evangelical miracles as more palpably and 
demonstrably genuine than other apparent ones, — all this would 
bear against Christianity as a whole. The ground of faith would 
depend on nice distinctions, and on minute investigations, such 
as only scientifically trained minds could adequately appreciate. 
And the result would at the best be dubious. The weight of 
evidence for the reality of the miracles, taken apart from the 
character and professions of those alleged to have performed 
them, would be insufficient to overcome in intelligent minds 
the distrust which is felt towards stories of miracles in general. 
There is a presumption against the truth of all such stories. 
The speculative presumption may be overcome by the general 
consideration that, if a revelation is to be made, it needs to be 
attested by supernatural signs. But the special presumption 
against the genuineness of particular alleged miracles can be 
overcome only by evidence that those for or by whom they are 
alleged to have been wrought are otherwise shown to have been 
trustworthy men, and the alleged revelation to be not repugnant 
to men's moral sense. The internal and the external evidence 
for the revelation can, therefore, not be separated. No apologist 
would, it is true, discard the internal evidence. But sometimes 
the two kinds are treated as if they had no vital connection 
with each other ; they are added together in a mathematical 
way, as if one of them could be presented in its full force in 
isolation from the other. 1 The fact is, that such a sundering is 
1 Dr. W. M. Taylor, to whose treatment of the subject (in his Gospel Mir a- 



190 



SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 



impossible. In judging of the reported miracles of Christ we 
cannot disregard the personal character of the miracle-worker. 
"When we compare his miracles with the marvels wrought by 
other men, the difference is found largely in the difference be- 
tween the persons operating. We believe in the one rather 
than in the other, not simply because the miraculous testimony 

cles) we have been constrained to take exception, sometimes recognizes the 
inseparableness of the two kinds of evidence, and even seems to go over to the 
other extreme against which elsewhere he contends. In his Second Lecture 
he says there are two classes of minds, the reflective and the perceptive (p. 32), 
the former of which is most impressed by that which lays hold on the moral 
nature. And later (p. 34), he says that "the personality of Christ" has now 
become " the great solvent of his miracles. It enables us to understand, ex- 
plain, and defend them." Still later (p. 57), he says that, after we have come 
to see the uniqueness of Christ's person, " the miracles of these narratives fall 
into their proper places, and are seen to be the natural accompaniments of the 
greater moral miracle in Christ himself." These statements, however, hardly 
seem to consist with some others. Thus (p. 32) : " These two methods of 
arriving at virtually the same result are separate and independent processes." 
And (p. 182): "In the line of proof the miracles come first, introducing the 
messenger from heaven ; then on the ground of that divine testimony which 
they bore to him we believe his teaching and receive himself; and after that, 
his teaching having been believed, experience begins to bear its witness." If 
Christ's personality is the solvent of the miracles, if it is that which enables 
us to understand and defend them, it is hard to see how the two methods of 
treating the Christian evidences can be declared to be separate and independent, 
and especially how it can be declared that in the line of proof the miracles 
come first. If it is on the ground of the miracles that Christ is believed and 
received, then the miracles would hardly seem to be in need of explanation and 
defense ; they must, ex hypothesi, be understood before Christ is received ; other- 
wise they furnish no satisfactory ground for receiving him. There is no way 
out of this self-contradiction, but to admit, together with the inseparableness 
of the two methods, the priority of the moral argument. As President Hop- 
kins puts it (Er.ide?ires of Ckristiam/?/, pp. 78 sq.): " Certainly, I think the his- 
torical evidence conclusive; and it is indispensable, because the Christian 
religion . . . has its foundation in facts. . . . But if the external evidences 
are thus indispensable and conclusive, so are also the internal. What would 
have been the effect and force of Christ's miracles without his spotless and 
transcendent character? If I am to say which would most deeply impress 
me with the fact that he was from God, the testimony respecting his miracles, 
or the exhibition of such a character, I think I should say the latter ; and I 
think myself as well qualified to judge in the one case as in the other; and, as 
I have said, I think this is the evidence which now presents itself." 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIKACLES. 191 

is more ample and unmistakable, but because we have more 
confidence in the agent, and discern an occasion for his miracles 
which we do not discern in the other cases. 

The advantage of recognizing this organic connection between 
the internal and the external evidences appears also when we 
consider the differences in the minds addressed by them. There 
are those who have an almost invincible prejudice against all 
stories of miracles ; till that prejudice is shaken, such stories 
can have little or no weight with them. On the other hand, 
there are those who easily believe in almost any alleged 
miracle ; to them, therefore, a miracle really proves nothing. 
There are, however, still others, not so credulous, who dis- 
believe ordinary stories of miracles, but are ready to believe 
thoroughly well attested ones, and regard them as having evi- 
dential force. Even for these, however, as we have seen, the 
evidence of miracles to the truth of Christianity never has been 
and never can be detached from the impression produced by the 
person and the doctrines of Christ. Still more obvious is it that 
to the other two classes — to those who believe too hardly, and 
to those who believe too easily — the most convincing proof is, 
in the first instance, an exhibition of the intrinsic spiritual ex- 
cellence of Christianity, of the unique grandeur of the character 
. of Christ, and of the power of Christian faith to transform and 
elevate the human soul. This proof once admitted, the mirac- 
ulous side of Christianity will be acknowledged afterwards, and 
will be seen to be a confirmation of the internal and the experi- 
mental evidence. 

But, it may now be asked, is not just this experimental evidence 
after all the principal thing ? If one has experienced Christian- 
ity as a reforming, inspiring, comforting, and saving power, what 
matters it whether the historical evidences of a supernatural 
revelation are made stringently conclusive to his mind ? If he 
has got the substantial and ultimate good which the Christian 
religion professes to bring, has he not the most satisfactory 
proof of its divine origin ? And is not the most convincing 
argument that can be addressed to an unbeliever the one which 
is derived from the manifestly beneficial effects of Christianity 
on the individual and the world ? Do we not find this intimated 



192 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

by Jesus himself, when he prays for his disciples, " that they 
may all be one, even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, 
that they also may be in us : that the world may believe that 
thou didst send me" (John xvii. 21)? That is, he prays that 
the world may be led to believe in his divine commission by 
the unifying spiritual effects of his gospel. 

Now all this may be freely conceded. If Christianity should 
fail to accomplish what it undertakes and promises, that failure 
would neutralize all arguments, however forcible, in favor of its 
supernatural origin. If, on the other hand, that spiritual renova- 
tion and purification which is professedly its chief aim should be 
everywhere and perfectly accomplished, this would be the most 
conclusive, though still not the only, proof that it is indeed of 
God. In reality, however, neither of these suppositions represents 
the exact fact. Christianity thus far is neither a perfect failure, 
nor a perfect success. In numberless instances it has effected 
remarkable transformations of character ; it has elevated whole 
tribes and nations ; it has counteracted vicious and downward 
tendencies of men, even when it has not been able wholly to out- 
root them. 1 But on the other hand the Christian church must be 
held responsible for many evils and wrongs. Large portions of it 
are found to be more devoted to outward forms than to inward 
purity. It has often given its sanction to cruelty and even crime. 
According to one's prepossession stress can be laid on the brighter 
or the darker side of the history of Christianity. Only, fairness 
requires that Christianity as such should not be held responsible 
for all that has been done and said by nominal Christians. Pre- 
cept or practice which plainly conflicts with the fundamental 
principles of the Christian religion, as laid down in the New 
Testament, is not Christian, even though bearing a Christian 
name. Conduct or feeling that is loveless can only be a perver- 
sion, not a true product, of a religion whose great and compre- 
hensive injunction is universal love. The failure of Christianity 
wholly to renovate the world is due simply to its not being true 

1 On the elevating effect of Christianity in general, vide C L. Brace, Gesta 
Christi ; W. E. H. Lecky, History of European Morals; Uhlhorn, Christian 
Charity in the Ancient Church ; R. S. Storrs, The Divine Origin of Christian- 
ity, New York, 1885. 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 193 

to itself. If it had done nothing in the work of moral improve- 
ment, or if some opposing system had done more, then this 
might be fairly urged as a reason for discrediting its claim to a 
divine origin. But no one, unless ignorant or biased, can make 
either of these assertions. 

Still it may be contended that what is good and beneficent in 
Christianity is purely natural and not revealed, that the notion 
of the duty of general benevolence, though adopted by Chris- 
tianity, is a product of the process of evolution, and that what 
is peculiar in Christian morality is a hinderance rather than a 
help to ethical progress. What are the peculiar features of 
Christian morality ? They concern the motives and the sanc- 
tions of the moral life. On the one hand, the originating im- 
pulse to a Christian life is found in the sense of sin as an offense 
against a righteous God, accompanied by the assurance that God, 
out of his fatherly love, will freely forgive those who repent of 
sin and seek to forsake it. This love is revealed and exempli- 
fied in Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God, who passed through 
the extreme of humiliation, temptation, and suffering, in order 
that he might become a sympathetic and perfect Eedeemer of 
men. Faith in him as such a divinely commissioned Eedeemer, 
love to him as a self-sacrificing Friend, imitation of him as a 
model of all human virtue, — this is made the motive power in 
the Christian's striving after moral perfection. On the other 
hand, a future life is held out to men, in which unhappiness is 
to be the consequence of persistence in wickedness, and the re- 
ward of a holy life is to be eternal fellowship with the Father, 
the Son, and the spirits of the just made perfect. 

Over against this a non-Christian, or natural, morality holds 
that there is and can be no such thing as the forgiveness of 
sin, 1 that the sole motive of a moral life is a sense of obligation 
to promote the happiness of men, and that the reward of a good 
life is in the good life itself. Now the question might be raised, 
how far this so-called natural morality is after all indebted to 
Christianity for its moral ideal. According to the evolution 
doctrine, all ideas are the product of heredity ; and men in Chris- 

1 See W. K. Clifford, The Ethics of Religion (in Lectures and Essays, vol. 
ii. p. 241). Cf. J. C. Morison, The Service of Man, chap. v. 

13 



194 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

tiau lands who have inherited the lessons of Christian ethics, 
even though they may abandon the Christian faith in many of 
its distinctive features, yet cannot claim that they have evolved, 
independently of Christian traditions, a moral sense and a moral 
code. But not to insist on this, the Christian position is that 
Christianity recognizes and enforces all the truth that natural 
morality contains, and adds to it a revelation which tends to 
intensify and accelerate the moral development of men. It 
deepens the sense of guilt, making sin to be not a mere natural 
and necessary disposition of the soul, but culpable impiety and 
disloyalty towards a loving Father and Sovereign. It provides 
a powerful motive to repentance and radical conversion in that 
it reveals God as loving the sinner while he abhors sin, and as 
urging him to accept a free salvation. It presents in Jesus 
Christ the love of God incarnate, and makes the ideal of holi- 
ness not an abstract and vague thing, but an ideal realized in 
the person of Christ. It gives warmth and stimulus to the cul- 
tivation of personal holiness by thus identifying, as it were, the 
motives to virtue with grateful devotion to a personal Friend. 
This common allegiance to one Head, moreover, leads to an 
organized union of believers through which, by mutual fellow- 
ship and aid, the work of sanctification in the Church and in 
the world is promoted. 

Now this, in brief outline, is what is peculiar to Christianity 
as a moral force in the world. And the question now before us 
is this : If Christianity proves to be successful in regenerating 
mankind, will not this success be the best and most convincing 
prooi that the Christian scheme is indeed from God ? And will 
not, therefore, miracles be needless, and belief in them a matter 
of indifference? 

We reply : The Christian religion may be accepted by one 
man because others have seemed to be the better for it ; hut no 
one can he the hctter for it without faith in the truth of it; and 
this faith has always depended on a helief in its supernatural 
attestation. Declarations concerning God's feelings towards men 
and his willingness to forgive sin ; concerning a plan of redemp- 
tion and an incarnation of the Son of God; concerning the 
regenerating and sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit; 



THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 195 

concerning a future life, a resurrection, and a state of final 
award, — these, and such like statements, respecting realms of 
truth and fact beyond the cognizance of men, must forever be 
regarded as uncertain speculations, unless they are ratified and 
confirmed by something that can be recognized as a divine at- 
testation. So long as they are regarded as nothing but uncer- 
tain speculations, they cannot move and mould the inner life. 
If they have had this effect in the world, it is because they have 
been believed to rest on the foundation of a testimony sealed 
and certified by signs from heaven. This faith must be a con- 
scious or latent one, in every man who adopts these doctrines of 
Christianity and makes them a controlling power in his life. 

So far we have considered the relation of miracles to a divine 
revelation without having undertaken to prove the fact of their 
occurrence. And the reason for pursuing this course is obvious. 
The proof of the necessity of supernatural signs as attestations 
of a divine revelation prepares the way for a proof of their actu- 
ality. If miracles are useless, this uselessness itself is a valid 
argument against their reality. If, on the other hand, there is 
antecedent reason to expect miracles, the proof of their occur- 
rence is easy. The only difficulty is that of deciding which of 
the religions professing to be of supernatural origin brings 
the most satisfactory credentials. And this difficulty is not very 
great. Even the most radical skeptics hardly question that the 
Christian miracles are more plausibly attested than any others 
connected with an alleged revelation. Having considered the 
definition and the evidential value of miracles, we come now to 
the question, What is the proof of the genuineness of the Chris- 
tian miracles ? 



196 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 



CHAPTER VII. 

TKOOF OF THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 

THIS topic has been so often and largely treated that only 
a brief summary will here be attempted. Moreover, the 
foregoing discussion has largely anticipated, in an indirect way, 
many of the positive arguments. 

I. First and foremost in the line of proof must always be the 
evidence concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ. On this 
point the following propositions may be laid down : — 

1. The apostles and the other immediate disciples of Christ 
believed that he rose from the dead on the Sunday after the 
crucifixion. This is now admitted by scholars and critics of all 
classes, — by the extreme negative as well as by the extreme 
positive school, and by all between. The Christian Church was 
founded, and developed its first fresh ardent life, on the strength 
of this belief. So much may be regarded as an established fact. 
The divergence of opinion begins when this belief of the dis- 
ciples is to be accounted for. 

2. The Christian Church spread rapidly, and was firmly estab- 
lished in Palestine in a very few years after the crucifixion. 
The undisputed testimony of Paul, confirmed by the narrative 
in the book of Acts, shows that the Church which he persecuted 
with so much fury had in that short time become a formidable 
power. 1 There was evidently no time for a myth to grow up 
respecting the resurrection. All the evidence and all the indi- 
cations show conclusively that the belief in it originated within 
a few days after the crucifixion, and must have sprung from an 
actual sight of the risen Christ or from some kind of delusion. 

3. This energetic belief in Christ's resurrection is satisfactorily 
explained only by the hypothesis that the resurrection was a 

1 Vide Rev. K. Twining on the Evidence of the Resurrection of Jesus 
Christ (in Boston Lectures, 1872). 



PROOF OF THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 197 

fact. This hypothesis explains everything, — the sudden trans- 
formation of the depression of the disciples into renewed cheer- 
fulness and courage ; the unanimity of the historical records 
and the traditional belief ; the admitted absence of the body of 
Jesus from the grave. In short, all that we know about the 
circumstances is intelligible on the supposition of the fact of 
the resurrection, while every other supposition involves the 
most arbitrary and improbable conjectures. 

If the fact of the resurrection is questioned or denied, then 
there remain only such conjectures as these : 

(1) That Jesus did not really die on the cross, but only 
swooned, and afterwards revived. This hypothesis, favored by 
so eminent a man as Schleiermacher, 1 may adduce for itself that 
Jesus is said to have died sooner than the crucified robbers, and 
was sooner taken down from the cross. Now, if the death was 
only apparent, it is supposed that he was after a while revived 
by the cool air of the sepulchre and by the effect of the spices, 
and, when able, rose, walked out, and showed himself. This 
hypothesis, however, hardly needs refutation. Not only does 
it plainly contradict the whole narrative, as we have it, but, as 
Strauss observes, 2 " it does not solve the problem which needs 
to be solved, namely, the founding of the Christian Church 
through the belief in a miraculous revivification of Jesus the 
Messiah. A man crawling half-dead out of the grave, steal- 
ing around infirmly, in need of medical care, of bandages, of 
strengthening, and of tender care, and after all succumbing to 
his suffering, could not possibly have made on his disciples the 
impression of being the Conqueror of death and the grave, the 
Prince of Life, — the impression which underlies their subse- 
quent deportment." 

(2) That the whole story of the resurrection was a deliberate 
fiction of the disciples. This is, if possible, still more inconceiv- 
able than the foregoing, though in part involved in it. For a 
revival from a swoon could not have been regarded as a resur- 

1 Leben Jesu, pp. 449 sqq. 

2 Leben Jesu fur das deutsehe Folk, § 47. See further C. A. Row, Historical 
Evidence of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, pp. 29 sq. (Present Day Tracts, 
vol. i.). 



198 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

rection from death; yet it was certainly so represented. The 
present supposition is that, without any reappearance of Jesus 
in life, the disciples agreed to pretend that they had seen him. 
This theory breaks down with its own weight. Whatever weak- 
nesses may be attributed to the apostles, they cannot be sup- 
posed to have been men capable of such a depth of dishonesty ; 
and most certainly men never endure privation, suffering, and 
death in defense of a known falsehood, as the apostles did on 
this supposition. We need not dwell on this theory, as scarcely 
any one can be found ready to maintain it. 

(3) That the disciples mistakenly supposed Jesus really to 
have risen from the dead. This theory, the only one that with 
any plausibility can be held as against the common one, may 
take various forms : as (a) that the disciples inferred the resur- 
rection from the Old Testament, or from intimations made by 
Jesus before the crucifixion, but did not see him. In this case, 
the stories of his appearances must be regarded as a later legend- 
ary growth, (b) Mary Magdalene and the women with her 
imagined that they saw an angel, or two angels, who said that 
Jesus was risen, or even saw some one whom they took to be 
Jesus, and that in the excitement of a full belief they reported 
to the apostles what they had seen, and these believed the re- 
port, but still without having any vision themselves, (c) The 
disciples themselves imagined that they saw Jesus in bodily 
form alive after the crucifixion. These different views may be 
to some extent united, as they are by Strauss. 1 

It is obvious that the hypothesis of honest delusion, however 
ingeniously it may be defended, is from beginning to end a mere 
hypothesis, unsupported by a single scrap of positive evidence. 
It is, moreover, opposed to all the intrinsic probabilities of the 
case. The whole burden of the narrative shows that the dis- 
ciples were disheartened by the crucifixion, and were not ex- 
pecting a resurrection. The women who first went to the grave 
went expecting to embalm Jesus' body, not to see him alive. 
The apostles, when they were told of his reappearance, were 
at first skeptical. Moreover, when they did see him, or thought 
they saw him, he appeared not merely to a single one at a time, 
1 Leben Jesu, § 49. 



PROOF OF THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 199 

but to groups of persons, — at one time to more than five hun- 
dred at once. This is not the manner of ecstatic visions, or of 
subjective fancies which clothe themselves in objective form. 
The operation of pure imagination in this matter can be cer- 
tainly proved to have taken place only in the invention of this 
hypothesis itself. Here imagination runs riot. 

The testimony of Paul is naturally regarded as of prime im- 
portance, since it is the earliest that we have, and the only one 
whose genuineness is as good as absolutely uncontested. What 
is the purport of it ? Two things are most certainly made clear 
by it : first, that the fact of Christ's resurrection was commonly 
assumed by Christians at that time ; secondly, that Paul repre- 
sents his own seeing of the risen Messiah as homogeneous 
with that of the other witnesses whom he mentions (1 Cor. 
xv. 1-11). 

It is not strange that those who will not believe in miracles 
should try to find in Paul's testimony evidence that all the 
supposed appearances of the risen Jesus were mere visions, that 
is, subjective experiences having the vividness of an actual per- 
ception of outward fact. Paul, they say, not only was given to 
having such visions (2 Cor. xii. 1, Acts xvi. 9, xviii. 9), but in 
this case also evidently saw Jesus only in a vision. In the 
three accounts of his conversion in Acts, he is not even said 
to have seen Jesus at all, but only to have heard him. This 
event took place, moreover, probably at least a year 1 after the 
other reputed appearances of Jesus, and when a literal bodily 
manifestation of himself, even if such ever took place, could 
hardly have been made. Now, if Paul's seeing of the Eisen 
One was only a vision, then by parity of reasoning those ex- 
periences of the other disciples which he makes parallel with 
his own, must be supposed to have been also purely sub- 
jective. 

What shall we say to this ? We must say that, if Paul's 
testimony, as being the most direct and unimpeachable, is to 
be used as the key by which to unlock the mystery of the 
resurrection stories, we must take his testimony as it stands. 
And what is it ? He is endeavoring to establish the fact of a 
1 Fide Keim, Geschichte Jesu von Nazara, vol. i. p. 631. 



200 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

bodily resurrection. And he argues it from the admitted fact 
that Jesus is already risen. Unless this resurrection had been 
a bodily resurrection, the argument would have no meaning. 
The argument is preceded by an account of the fact that Jesus 
rose three days after the crucifixion, and was seen by Peter, the 
twelve, more than five hundred disciples, James, and finally by 
himself. His statement furnishes the basis of the following 
argument. Such, he says, being the truth that has been 
preached, " how say some among you that there is no resurrec- 
tion of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, 
neither hath Christ been raised." Now nothing can be plainer 
than that Paul here makes everything rest on the fact of Jesus' 
bodily resurrection. A mere continued existence of the spirit, 
apart from the body, cannot possibly be meant when he tells 
of Jesus rising three days after his crucifixion. And it is no 
less plain that the appearances to Peter and the others are 
understood by Paul to be appearances of Jesus' resurrection- 
body. The language used is not that which describes a mere 
vision. Nor do visions occur simultaneously to men in groups. 
Moreover, these appearances are adduced as proofs of the fact 
of the bodily resurrection having really taken place. If any- 
thing is certain, it is certain that Paul does not here mean to 
describe the experience of the disciples as an ecstasy, but as a 
literal fact. Consequently, in that he makes his own experi- 
ence parallel with theirs, he is to be understood as not de- 
scribing Jesus' appearance to him as a visionary, but as a 
bodily, one. 

Even if Paul's experience is to be called a vision, it is still an 
open question what is meant by a vision. Was it a morbid im- 
pression, a hallucination due to an excited nervous state ? Or 
was the cause of it something really objective ? 1 The world, 
both Christian and heathen, has abounded in alleged visions, 
the most of which we may presume to have been merely sub- 
jective, caused by an excited state of the subjects of the vision. 
But the fact that such experiences are possible does not prove 
that no other kind of visions is possible. Even if we should 
concede that the appearances of Jesus after the crucifixion were 
1 Cf. Professor Eisher, Supernatural Origin of Christianity, p. 468. 



PROOE OF THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 201 

visions, we should still have to maintain that according to the 
narrative the appearances were not subjective fancies simply, 
but objective revelations. This is the character ascribed in the 
Bible to the visions of prophets and apostles. When Peter had 
a trance (Acts x. 9-16), and saw the vision of the beasts, and 
heard the command to eat, this was, according to the mind of 
the narrator, clearly not an experience growing out of mental or 
nervous excitement, causing his own thoughts and feelings to 
objectify themselves in the form of apparently visible and audi- 
ble outward objects. Peter took it as a divine communication 
correcting, not springing out of, his previous notions. Of course 
a skeptic can still say that the whole thing may have been a 
diseased fancy ; or that the narrative itself is wholly or in part 
fictitious. But our point now is that the Biblical representation 
of these ecstatic experiences is that they are not purely subjec- 
tive states, but are states produced by divine power for the pur- 
pose of special illumination and instruction. Consequently it 
follows that, when Paul speaks of these appearances of the risen 
Christ, he means to describe a real objective fact, even though 
we should still call it a vision. In the light of this reflection it 
is obvious how much weight is to be attached to such an asser- 
tion as that of Mr. Greg, when he says, 1 " Now we know that 
his appearance to Paul was in a vision, — a vision visible to 
Paul alone of all the bystanders, and therefore subjective or 
mental merely." The reply is : If we know this, we do not 
know it because Luke or Paul has told it, but because we are 
unwilling to believe what they say. The phrase used by Paul 
(axpOr) Krj^a, " he was seen to Cephas," etc.) is the same that is 
used in the account of the appearance of the angel to Zacharias 
(Luke i. 11), of Moses and Elijah on the mount (Matt. xvii. 3, etc.), 
of the cloven tongues (Acts ii. 3), of God to Abraham (Acts vii. 
2), of the angel in the bush (vii. 30). Once it is used in con- 
nection with an experience called a "vision" (opa/na), namely, 
in Acts xvi. 9, where it is said that "a vision appeared to Paul 
in the night." On the other hand it is also used (Acts vii. 26) 
of so matter-of-fact a thing as Moses' " appearing " to the quarrel- 
ing Hebrews in Egypt. Now in each of these cases the writer 
1 Creeds of Christejidom, vol. ii. p. 147. 



202 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

obviously understands these appearances as not " subjective or 
mental merely." Mr. Greg's statement, moreover, is not true 
even on his own ground; for the other bystanders are repre- 
sented as sharing, in part at least, in the vision. They saw 
the light (which is all that Paul is said to have seen) ; and 
the only difference relates to the hearing, respecting which 
two of the accounts (Acts xxii. 9, ix. 7) seem not to give the 
same representation. 1 

The theory of Schenkel, 2 Keim, 3 and others, that the reappear- 
ance of Jesus was a fact, but not the appearance of a risen body, 
is nearer the truth than the notion that the appearance was 
a mere fancy growing out of extraordinary excitement. If not 
in words, yet in fact, this hypothesis admits the supernatural 
character of the phenomenon. The glorified Christ is conceived 
to have really manifested himself in some special manner those 
few times, in order to impart the needed courage and assurance 
to the down-cast disciples. But the stories of Jesus as appear- 
ing in a bodily form, now semi-ghostly and now literal flesh and 
blood, they discard as unintelligible, self-contradictory, and man- 
ifestly legendary. Paul is with them, as with the others, the 
witness whose testimony is depended on. But Paul's language 
refuses to accommodate itself to this theory, even though the 
contradiction is less sharp than with the other. As has been 
above said, he is arguing for a bodily resurrection; and his use 
of the facts following the crucifixion is without meaning, unless 
they go to show that Jesus had risen in bodily form. The dis- 
tinct specification that Jesus rose the third day cannot be tor- 
tured into harmony with this effort to sublimate the Christo- 
phanies into merely spiritual manifestations. Keim has no 

1 As both the accounts are recorded by the same man, it is no more than 
reasonable to suppose that he meant no contradiction, and that the positive 
statement, that the men did hear, should be made to explain the negative one 
that they did not hear. Moreover, though not in the historical narrative, yet 
in 1 Cor. ix. 1, and xv. 8, Paul declares himself to have seen the Lord Jesus 
himself. 

2 CharahterbiU Jesu, pp. 231, 232, 3d ed. 

8 Gesch. Jesu v. Nazara, vol. iii. pp. 600 sqq. Similarly Weizsacker, Unter- 
suchungen icber die evang. Geschichte, pp. 573 sq. ; E. A. Abbott, The Kernel 
and the Husk, Letters 20-23. 



PROOF OF THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 203 

better explanation of this notion about the third day than that 
it was one which grew, not out of any palpable appearance, but 
out of Jewish notions concerning the length of time intervening 
between death and entrance into Hades, and out of a misin- 
terpretation of Hos. vi. 2, and of certain utterances of Jesus 
himself. 1 

The real reason for rejecting the traditional notion respecting 
the resurrection is the difficulty of conceiving such a body as 
that described in the Gospels. Just so the Corinthian doubters 
asked, " How are the dead raised ? and with what manner of 
body do they come ? " (1 Cor. xv. 35.) If one is unwilling to 
accept Paul's reply, and believe that, whatever mystery there 
may be about it, it is yet a veritable body, he cannot with any 
plausibility or consistency deny the bodily resurrection of Christ 
on the ground of Paul's testimony. 

Paul's testimony respecting the other disciples is of course 
only testimony at second hand. But it is at any rate that of a 
trustworthy man who got his account from the original wit- 
nesses, and got it within a few years, 2 at the most, of the time of 
the alleged resurrection. And it follows from this that a short 
time after the death of Jesus the apostles and many others all 
affirmed that Jesus had been seen by them in bodily form after 
the crucifixion. And the firm assurance of this fact had embold- 
ened them to preach the gospel. Paul's testimony, then, estab- 
lishes the fact that the original disciples of Jesus believed that 
they had seen him alive in bodily form after the crucifixion, and 
that these appearances had not been to single individuals only, 
who might possibly have been deluded through mental or ner- 
vous excitement, but simultaneously to groups of persons. 

Now it would seem to be difficult to evade the conclusion 
that the evidence in the case establishes the fact of the resur- 
rection. And when we add to the testimony of Paul that of the 
four Gospels and the book of Acts, all of which unite in emphat- 
ically bearing the same testimony, one might suppose that the 
assurance would be made doubly sure. But the skeptical critics, 
having started with the predetermination not to believe in a 

1 Gesch. Jesu v. Nazara, vol. iii., pp. 600, sqq. He even questions the story 
about the empty grave. 2 Cf. Acts ix. 26, 27; Gal. i. 18. 



204 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

miracle, and having decided (in plain opposition to Paul himself) 
that Paul at his conversion had only a subjective experience, — 
a mere illusion growing out of mental excitement and conscienti- 
ous qualms (of which also the only proof is the skeptic's imagi- 
nation x ), — it is of course a foregone conclusion that the historical 
books must somehow be discredited. Now an unbiased reader 
of these books would naturally be inclined to say that in the 
matter of Christ's resurrection their testimony is especially 
strong. Whereas most other incidents in the life of Christ are 
narrated by only one, two, or three of the Evangelists, this 
event is narrated by all of them, and with exceptional emphasis. 
It lies on the surface of the narratives that the resurrection, or 
supposed resurrection, had made a most profound impression. 
And it is anything but a mark of candor, when critics dwell on 
the variations and discrepancies in the details of these several 
narratives, and then draw the inference that the story as a whole 
is unworthy of belief. It requires little acumen to see that, if 
the four stories, instead of disagreeing with one another in this 
or that particular, were minutely harmonious, this very exact- 
ness of harmony would itself be taken as a suspicious circum- 
stance, indicating collusion among the authors, or else the work 
of a harmonizing redactor. 2 

It is a fact that there are disagreements in these several nar- 
ratives. Some are slight ; many of them may be explained by 
conjectural suppositions ; others can be removed only by hy- 
potheses which at the best seem somewhat violent and arbi- 
trary. When Luke confines the Christophanies to Jerusalem 
and vicinity, and even reports Jesus as forbidding the apostles 
to depart from the city till after Pentecost (xxiv. 49 ; Acts i. 
4), while Matthew records no Christophany as occurring in 
Judea, but only in Galilee, and reports Jesus as directing the 
apostles to go at once to Galilee (xxviii. 10), the natural im- 

1 Vide. "Fisher, Supernatural Origin of Christianity, pp. 464 sq. 

2 This is illustrated by the case of Mark xvi. 9-20, which, according to 
both internal and external evidence, seems hardly to be an integral part of the 
Gospel, but an editorial appendix, giving a compendious account culled from 
John, Matthew, and especially Luke. And so Strauss {Leben Jesu, § 97), 
Keim (Gesch. Jesu v. Nazara, vol. iii. pp. 566 sqq), and others, treat it. 



PKOOF OF THE CHEISTIAN MIRACLES. 205 

pression made is that the two authors did not have the same con- 
ception concerning the facts. We need not assume an absolute 
contradiction. We may suppose 1 that the command to remain 
in Jerusalem was uttered after the return from Galilee, so that 
then the difference remaining is only the negative one, that the 
one Gospel records only the Judean appearances, while the other 
records only the Galilean ; and the reconciliation consists in 
assuming that the two narratives give accounts of distinct 
events, and must be united in order to make a complete his- 
tory. We find also numerous other apparent discrepancies, — 
respecting the women who first went to the grave, the angelic 
appearances, etc. There is nothing in the Synoptical Gospels 
which corresponds naturally with John's story about Mary 
Magdalene, John, and Peter visiting the tomb. Luke makes 
Mary go with several other women ; John makes her go quite 
alone. So, while Mark (xvi. 8) describes the women as too 
much afraid to report what they had seen, Matthew and Luke 
relate that they carried the information to the apostles. 

Now, by piling together such variations one can, if he please, 
make a considerable show of inexplicable disagreement. It 
is, we must confess, impossible to determine just how this 
diverseness in the histories is to be explained. But we may say 
precisely the same respecting the rest of the gospel history. 2 
If, wherever two accounts of the same event vary in their 
details, or one Evangelist omits what another one records, we 
are to question the authenticity of the whole, then we shall 
annihilate almost the whole of the gospel history. No two 
Evangelists give the same account of Jesus' birth and early 
life. John's account of the Baptist coincides in almost no point 
exactly with that of the Synoptists. Luke's narrative of the 
temptation of Jesus differs from Matthew's, while Mark only 
mentions it summarily, and John not at all. John also makes 

1 With Alford on Luke xxiv. 49, and others. Yet this explanation does 
not remove the difficulty, that Luke seems to represent the commaud not to' 
depart from Jerusalem as having been given on the very day of the resurrection. 

2 Lessing (Eine Duplifc), while stoutly maintaining the impossibility of har- 
monizing the several narratives of the resurrection, was candid enough to 
affirm that in spite of the contradictions the fact of the resurrection might be 
credited. 



206 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

no mention of the baptism of Jesus. There are noticeable 
variations in the accounts of the first calling of the apostles. 
Luke makes the Sermon on the Mount rather a Sermon on 
the Plain (vi. 17), and makes it shorter and in many points 
other than Matthew does. There is disagreement as to the very 
names of the apostles. As to the order of events, the three 
Synoptists diverge from one another ; and John greatly diverges 
from them all, dwelling on Christ's activity in Jerusalem, about 
which the others are almost wholly silent. As to Jesus' in- 
timate friends in Bethany, Matthew and Mark do not seem to 
know about them ; Luke (x. 38-42) mentions the names of Mary 
and Martha, but gives no hint of special intimacy, and does not 
mention the name of the village. And so we might go on. If, 
in order to the authentication of the evangelical history, we must 
insist on exact agreement between the four Gospels, we shall end 
in having as good as no history at all. When, therefore, Strauss 
and his followers parade the variations in the narratives of the 
Christophanies, and infer that no credit is to be given to any of 
them, consistency would require that the same principle should 
be applied to the history of Jesus all the way from his birth to 
his death. Mr. Greg 1 says that the different narratives of the 
resurrection " agree in everything that is natural and probable, 
and disagree in everything that is supernatural and difficult of 
credence. All the accounts agree that the women, on their 
matutinal visit to the Sepulchre, found the body gone, and saw 
some one in white raiment who spoke to them. They agree in 
nothing else!' And Mr. Greg appears to be much confounded 
by this fact. He says 2 that, if the case rested only on the testi- 
mony of Paul and the fact that the resurrection was believed by 
the whole original Christian Church, " our grounds for accepting 
the resurrection as an historical fact would be far stronger than 
they actually are. In truth, they would appear to be nearly un- 
assailable and irresistible." But it is the "vague, various, and 
self-contradictory " narratives in the Gospels which trouble him. 
Now it is manifest that these discrepancies would seriously 
trouble nobody who is predisposed to believe in supernatural 

1 Creeds of Christendom, vol. ii. p. 148. 

2 In his Preface, p. xxviii. 



PROOF OF THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 207 

manifestations as the accompaniments of a chosen Bevealer of 
divine truth. Such a one finds the evangelical histories a strong 
confirmation of Paul's testimony. Such a one would say : " True, 
the several accounts vary in details, as we might expect. But 
they agree in the important fact of the resurrection, the visible 
and tangible reappearance, of Jesus. They agree that he rose 
before the dawn of the first day of the week. They agree that 
Mary Magdalene was the foremost of those who visited the 
sepulchre. They agree that Jesus appeared to his apostles as- 
sembled together. They agree in representing his resurrection- 
body as the same as the crucified one, while yet they agree in 
ascribing to it a peculiar, semi-spiritual character. They agree 
in describing the disciples as all fully convinced of the reality of 
the resurrection, and as confirmed thereby in their faith in him 
as the Messiah of God. The disagreements concern unimportant 
details ; and even if some of them could be shown to be irrecon- 
cilable contradictions, they would not invalidate the main drift 
of the stories of the resurrection." 

But this is not the whole of the testimony. The book of Acts 
records that the apostles made the resurrection of Jesus the 
central fact of their preaching, and made thousands of converts 
in the very place where he had just been ignominiously put to 
death. The Church made such progress within a year that per- 
secution was resorted to as a means of checking its dangerous 
growth. But we are not confined to the testimony of Paul, 
the book of Acts, and the Gospels. Even if we do not insist 
that John wrote the Fourth Gospel, or that Matthew wrote 
the First, we still have direct apostolic testimony. We have 
John's testimony in the Apocalypse, which the skeptical critics 
generally concede to be a genuine work of the apostle. He 
there calls Christ "the first-born of the dead" (i. 5), and repre- 
sents Christ as saying, " I was dead, and behold I am alive for 
evermore" (i. 18); and again he says, "These things saith the 
first and the last, which was dead, and lived again" (ii. 8). 1 

1 While not doubting that John the Apostle is the author of the Fourth 
Gospel (the proof of which has been given by so many, especially by Dr. Ezra 
Abbot in his Authorship of the Fourth Gospel), we take the evidence which the 
skeptics themselves do not impugn. 



208 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

These passages are, indeed, not explicit, as from the connection 
we could not expect them to be ; but they manifestly imply the 
belief in Jesus' bodily resurrection. In what other sense could 
he be called the "first-lorn of the dead " ? As Christlieb l well 
remarks, in reply to Strauss, who says that the book of Kevela- 
tion only affirms in general that Jesus had been killed, and was 
now alive again, " This certainly cannot mean the first of those 
who lived immortal after death, for there were enough such 
before Christ." But we have Peter's testimony in his First 
Epistle, the genuineness of which is almost as well established 
as that of Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians. In this epistle 
Peter mentions Jesus' resurrection at the very opening of it 
(i. 3) as the event which had begotten the Christians unto 
a living hope; and again, in i. 21, he speaks of God "which 
raised him [Jesus] from the dead;" and still again, in iii, 21, 
the resurrection of Jesus Christ is spoken of as a means of 
salvation. 

But, it may be said, it is conceded that the immediate dis- 
ciples of Christ thought they had seen him alive after the cruci- 
fixion. May they not, however, have been mistaken, honestly 
mistaken ? Well, if it is a question of bare possibility, yes, it 
is possible that, while in the deepest despondency of grief, the 
apostles suddenly swung themselves up into the mental atti- 
tude of . assured expectation of seeing the Messiah again in 
bodily form. It is possible that the nerves of Mary Magdalene 
and of Peter became suddenly disordered on that Sunday morn- 
ing, and that they consequently imagined that the risen Saviour 
appeared to them visibly. It is possible that a similar disorder 
seized all the eleven, when they were together, and affected them 
to such an extent that they not only seemed to see Jesus, but 
heard him speak and saw him eat. It is possible that five 
hundred persons might simultaneously be afflicted with such 
a nervous affection that they should imagine that they had a 
vision of Jesus in bodily form. " All things are possible to " 
the critic " that believeth." But ordinary men of plain common 
sense can hardly be so credulous. 

The conflict of opinions is very easily explained. It does not 

1 Modern Doubt and Christian Belief, p. 467- 



PROOF OF THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 209 

come from paucity of evidence, but simply from a conflict of 
prepossessions. The critical doubts respecting the resurrection 
are primarily dogmatic doubts. They spring from a predeter- 
mination not to believe in alleged miracles, — a fixed conviction 
that miracles are incredible or impossible. Those who believe 
in the resurrection of Christ, on the other hand, not only be- 
lieve in the general possibility of the miraculous, but in the spe- 
cial need of a self-manifestation of God, and the need of special 
attestation of him who professes to be the instrument of such 
a manifestation. This prepossession makes it comparatively 
easy to believe in the occurrence of supernatural events which 
are alleged to have served the purpose of such attestation. The 
scientific presumption against miracles is more than outweighed 
by the religious presumption in favor of miracles wrought for 
such a purpose. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the 
dead seems intrinsically probable and fit, when he is regarded 
as a divinely appointed and furnished Mediator between God 
and men. Consequently to such minds evidence of the fact of 
the resurrection, such as the New Testament furnishes, is ample 
and even overwhelming. 

It is a remarkable fact that the evidence for the resurrection 
of Christ is so strong as to be almost or quite convincing to 
many men who refuse to believe in any other recorded miracle 
of the Gospels. While this illustrates the strength of the argu- 
ment for the reality of this particular event, it illustrates also 
the illogicalness of those who occupy this position. For surely 
if the greater is proved, it must be easy to prove the less. 
We need therefore to dwell at less length on — 

II. The proof of the miracles wrought by Christ. If he was 
a being of altogether unique character ; if he sustained an al- 
together peculiar relation to God and to men; and if this 
uniqueness was effectually authenticated by his miraculous 
resurrection, — all a priori and scientific objections to miracles 
wrought by him are at once swept away. We not only can be- 
lieve that he performed miracles, but we naturally expect mir- 
acles from such a being. Their absence would surprise us more 
than their presence. At all events, granted the greater miracle, 
the one by which most emphatically God set his seal on the 

14 



210 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

ministry of Christ, other miracles can be easily proved, if the 
evidence is sufficiently ample. What, then, is the evidence ? 

Speaking generally, we may say that the proof of miraculous 
events as characteristic of the life of Christ is almost co-exten- 
sive with the proof that he lived at all. The earliest records of 
his life are saturated with the supernatural. 1 Not only are 
specific miracles reported in great numbers and often with 
great minutenesss of detail, but all the incidental features of 
the Gospel history indicate the presence of an altogether pe- 
uliar element in his character and works. The tone of au- 
thority which he assumed ; the fear and deference which he 
inspired in those who saw and heard him; the general state- 
ments about him, — all this indicates not only that the writers 
believed him to be a great miracle-worker, but that he was 
such. 

The manner in which the stories of miracles are interwoven 
with the general sketch of Jesus' character and life harmonizes 
perfectly with the extraordinary claims which he made for 
himself. These claims themselves, though they are unparal- 
leled in their extravagance, unless he was indeed the Son of 
God and Son of man in an altogether unique sense, yet consti- 
tute an element in the gospel history that cannot by any pos- 
sibility be eliminated. He announced himself at the outset as 
the introducer of the kingdom of God (Matt. iv. 17). In the 
Sermon on the Mount he assumed authority to interpret and 
modify the Mosaic law (v. 21-48) ; he represented obedience to 
his words as that on which the destiny of men was to turn 
(vii. 21-27). He made no confession of sin and challenged his 
enemies to convict him of sin (John viii. 29, 46). He required 
an allegiance to himself transcending the closest earthly ties 
(Matt. x. 34-39). He called himself the Light of the World 
(John viii. 12). He invited all men to come to him for rest 
(Matt. xi. 28). He promised his followers eternal life (Luke 

1 Holtzmann, who certainly cannot be called too credulous a critic, says 
(Die synoptischen Evangelien, p. 509), "The narratives of miracles constitute 
so truly the substance of the Synoptical account that, as soon as one tears 
them out, the whole mosaic-work loses all perceptible plan, all intelligible 
characteristics." 



PROOF OF THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 211 

xviii. 30). He assumed the prerogative of universal and final 
Judge, before whom all nations are to be gathered (Matt. xxv. 
31-46). He claimed the power to forgive sin (Matt. ix. 2-6; 
Luke vii. 48). He bade men pray to the Father in his name 
(John xv. 16, xvi. 24), and represented himself as the dispenser 
of spiritual life (John vi. 35, 47-58). These are only speci- 
mens of the general attitude of extraordinary authority and 
dignity to which he is said to have laid claim. And that these 
representations correctly picture the attitude which he really 
assumed, is confirmed by the conception of Christ which runs 
all through the Epistles of Paul, who calls Christ the Son of 
God (Rom. i. 4) ; sinless, yet set forth by God to be a propitia- 
tion for the sins of men (Rom. iii. 25 ; 2 Cor. v. 21) ; the sole 
Mediator between God and man (1 Tim. ii. 5) ; the Head of the 
church, from whom all the members derive their life (Rom. xii. 
4, 5 ; 1 Cor. xii. 27 ; Eph. v. 30 ; Col. ii. 19). 

That such a person, charged with so peculiar a mission, 
should have been able to authenticate his claims by means of 
extraordinary works, is so natural that the narratives of the 
miracles excite no surprise, but everywhere seem to be per- 
fectly in keeping with the general style of the description. The 
right of criticism to sift the narratives and eliminate, if possi- 
ble, unauthentic portions, cannot be denied. But what must be 
denied is the right to make the presence of the supernatural 
the invariable touchstone by which narratives are to be pro- 
nounced " unhistorical." Yet this is substantially the principle 
of modern negative criticism. That Christ healed many sick 
people the critics are willing to admit, in so far as the healing 
can be accounted for as caused by medical skill and the influ- 
ence of a sympathetic nature on Christ's part, and the influence 
of " faith," that is, strong confidence in Christ's healing power, 
on the part of the patients. But whenever the disease assumes 
a serious form, the alleged miracle is at once pronounced incred- 
ible, and some other explanation of the story is resorted to. 
Thus Scholten 1 says of the story of the leprous man (Mark i. 
40-45), " This narrative seems not to be historical, since it is in- 
conceivable that physical leprosy should have yielded to a mere 

1 Das dlteste Eoangelium, p. 202. 



212 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

command of Jesus." Armed with this sweeping principle, the 
critics construct elaborate hypotheses to account for the numer- 
ous stories of miraculous events with which the life of Christ is 
filled. 

Disagreement among the critics cannot be fairly adduced as 
a proof that none of them can be in the right. But the dis- 
agreement may serve to show how little they can all lay claim 
to having offered a scientific and historical solution of the prob- 
lem presented by the miracles. Let us take a single specimen. 
The miracle of the loaves is the best attested of all the miracles, 
except the resurrection of Christ. It is the only one narrated 
by all the four Evangelists. 1 JSTo serious objection on the score 
of discrepancy between the several accounts can be made out. 
The narrative is full, explicit, unequivocal. Now, how shall 
the story be explained " critically ? " Strauss 2 finds in it a 
myth growing out of certain Old Testament passages like Ps. 
cvii. 4-9 ; 1 Kings xvii.' 7 sqq. ; and out of the importance 
attached by Christ and the early Christians to the breaking of 
bread in common. Keim 3 finds the explanation of the story in 
Christ's parable of the sower, which (in Matthew) is given 
in the preceding chapter. Scholten 4 refers to Jesus' language 
in Mark vi. 34 (" sheep not having a shepherd"), and says that 
this refers to spiritual want, — a want which was supplied by 
the sermon mentioned in the same verse. He gave the people 
the "bread of life," — a phrase which, though it occurs only 
in the Fourth Gospel, "Jesus may really have used." And 
"hence arose the symbolic notion of the miraculous feeding of 
thousands." Paulus 5 finds in the story nothing but the simple 
fact that Jesus persuaded those of the multitude who had food 

1 By the exercise of a violent imagination two or three others also are found 
in all the four. E.g., Keim identifies the story of the paralytic in Matt. ix. 2 
sqq., Mark ii. 3 sqq., Luke v. 18 sqq., with the story of the lame man in John 
v. 5 sqq., though the locality, the disease, the cure, and the accompanying con- 
versation are totally different ! 

2 Leben Jesu, § 79. 3 Gesrh. Jesu v. Nazara, vol. ii. p. 133. 

4 L. c, p. 210. Similarly Ewald, Geschichte Christus' und seiner Zeit, p. 443, 
but with less positiveness. Also E. A. Abbott, Philochristus, pp. 214 sq.; 
The Kernel and the Husk, Letter 19. 

5 Leben Jesu, vol. i. pp. 349 sq. 



PROOF OF THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 213 

to impart it to those who had none. Weisse 1 discovers the key 
to the mysterious narrative in the conversation between Christ 
and his disciples respecting the leaven of the Pharisees (Matt, 
xvi. 5-12 ; Mark viii. 14-21). There Christ makes direct ref- 
erence to the two miraculous feedings, and yet explicitly says 
that he does not refer to bread, but to the doctrine of the 
Pharisees. Consequently, Weisse infers, that the reference to 
the miraculous feedings is nothing but an allusion to a discourse 
in which Jesus had used figurative language respecting bread 
which the disciples had understood literally. Weisse is so sure 
of the correctness of this explanation that he thinks it must be 
perfectly convincing " to every one whose eyes are not as dull, 
or whose mind is not as hardened, as were the eyes and mind of 
those disciples" themselves. Weizsacker 2 conjectures that in 
some way not narrated Jesus had impressed upon his hearers 
the lesson of the Sermon on the Mount, that they should not 
be anxious about food and clothing, and had impressed it so 
powerfully that they somehow got the impression of a miracle 
of feeding, though it was in fact only a miracle of faith. 

Now, without a special examination and refutation of these 
and other such would-be scientific explanations of this miracle, 
we may be content with simply putting them side by side, re- 
membering that each author lays down his explanation as the 
only correct one. If it were certain that the narrative, as it 
stands, must be regarded as false, and if therefore it follows 
that it must have originated from some misconception, why, 
then, of course, we should have to say that, though not all of 
these explanations can be correct, yet perhaps some one of them 
is correct. But if we assume that the miracle really hap- 
pened as related, we are relieved of the necessity of choosing 
between these various conjectures as to what the underlying 
fact was. 

What, then, is the reason why this miracle, 3 so strongly at- 

1 Die evangelische Geschichte, vol. i. pp. 510 sqq. 

2 Untersuchungen iiber die evang. Gesch., p. 449. 

8 As we do not undertake a minute examination of the several miracles, we 
refrain from discussing the question, whether the second miracle of feeding, 
recorded by Matthew (xv. 32-39) and Mark (viii. 1-9), but not by Luke and 



214 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

tested, is so reluctantly admitted, as compared with the narra- 
tives of miraculous healings ? The only explanation is that the 
latter, though called miraculous, are not really regarded as such. 
The power of one person over another, both in mental and 
physical respects, has been so often illustrated in actual life ; 
the phenomena of remarkable cures wrought apparently by 
direct physical contact, or even by an exertion of will with- 
out physical contact, are so numerous and well attested, 1 that 
it is easy to believe that Jesus may have been one of those 
exceptionally gifted persons who possess this magnetic heal- 
ing power. Moreover, the miracles of healing, according to 
the Evangelists themselves, far outnumbered all others, and are 
often mentioned in a general way as continually performed by 
Jesus ; whereas the miracles wrought on irrational nature are 
more manifestly rare and exceptional. When in addition to 
this we consider how little accurate scientific knowledge there 
could have been in those days, and how easily such cures might 
have been magnified, we can understand the plausibility and 
fascination of a theory which sharply distinguishes between 
effects wrought on the human body under the co-operating in- 
fluence of a lively hope and faith on the part of the invalid, 
and effects said to have been wrought on inanimate nature. In 
the former case no real miracle is assumed at all. The effects, 
though perhaps startling, are yet such as have always had their 
counterparts. And even if one holds 2 that Jesus' healing 
power was proportioned to his spiritual pre-eminence, and was 

John, is not really the same as the first in a somewhat different form. Even 
if we should assume that it was, the assumption would not invalidate the evi- 
dence of the reality of the one miracle, but, if possible, would strengthen it. 

1 Vide Carpenter, Mental Physiology, §§ 500, 569-571; Tuke, Influence of 
the Mind upon the Body, vol. ii. pp. 269 sqq.; Braid, Neurypnology, pp. 161 sqq. 

2 As Weisse, Die evangelische Geschichte, vol. i. pp. 366 sqq. Weisse, while 
strenuously contending against the reality of miracles in the ordinary sense, 
yet retains the term as appropriately designating the unique works of Jesus. 
Lange {Leben Jesu, vol. ii. p. 26 S) expresses a notion somewhat like this of 
Weisse's. The miracles, he says, " constitute the twigs of a tall, strong tree, 
and appear quite simply as its natural expression, its works. . . . Should not 
the tree of life of this new aeon be able to wear this crown which it wears 
without breaking down, — to put forth these blossoms which deck it out of its 
own wealth of inward life ? " 



PROOF J3F THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 215 

a sort of physical consequence of his spiritual gifts, still one 
can avoid admitting any miracle in the proper sense. We 
admit, in such a case, at the most only a higher degree, not 
another kind, of power than that possessed by many men in all 
ages. 

What shall we say to this ? We must say, in the first place, 
that the hypothesis, just mentioned, that a physical power of 
healing is co-ordinate with spiritual eminence, is a pure fiction 
without the shadow of foundation. Neither eminence in intel- 
lectual power nor eminence in piety has any special connection 
with that peculiar power over disease which some men seem to 
possess. Else we should find Goethe, the intellectual giant, 
and Eichard Baxter, the eminent saint, each remarkable for his 
power to heal the sick. But, in the second place, if Christ's 
healing power was not a sort of natural and necessary product 
of spiritual pre-eminence, but merely a faculty in which he 
happened to surpass the most, or all, of those who have had a 
like talent, the fact loses absolutely all significance for us, ex- 
cept as being an interesting phenomenon in the history of 
medical science. We cannot, from his supereminent success as 
a healer, infer his supereminence as a teacher, still less his 
divine appointment to bring salvation. The healing power, on 
this theory, only haiopcns to be associated with a high degree 
of moral worth, but in itself serves no religious purpose to the 
world whatsoever. The fact of it is believed in simply because 
it is well attested and is not intrinsically difficult to believe. 
That Jesus by his cures created a great sensation and got the 
name of a miracle-worker, may also readily be admitted ; for 
such cures naturally seem to the ignorant and uninitiated to be 
real miracles ; but the fact still remains, on the hypothesis before 
us, that the cures were not miraculous, but were really nothing 
but " mind-cures " on a somewhat grand scale. 1 

1 This is substantially the view of Bishop Temple (Relations between Reli- 
gion and Science, p. 201) : " It is quite conceivable that many of his miracles 
of healing may have been the result of this power of mind over body. . . . 
Some can influence other men's bodies more, some less. Possibly he may have 
possessed this power absolutely where others possessed it conditionally. ... If 



216 



SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 



But by taking this view of Jesus as a healer we not only 
deny to the cures all supernatural character and all religious 
significance, but we even imperil faith in his superior morality. 
For the same narratives which record the wonderful cures also 
give us to understand that the healing power was a divine gift 
of a supernatural sort. 1 Christ appealed to his works as proofs 
of his divine calling. 2 In case now his cures were not miraculous, 
but were only the result of a fortunate natural endowment, 
then he can hardly be acquitted of a dishonest use of his 
power, if he himself appealed to it as proof of his Messiahship, 
or if he even allowed others to derive such an inference. The 
wonderful healings thus become a positively embarassing ele- 
ment in his history. If they did not really authenticate him 
as a supernaturally endowed messenger of God, but were only 
thought to do so, then their only religious use was a deceptive 
one. At the best, in this case, we can only ascribe to him the 
merit of having used his power benevolently. But far better 
would it have been for him to refrain from exercising the 
power at all than to gain by it the reputation of having an 
authority to which it did not really entitle him. Curing 
diseases is not the only way in which philanthropy can mani- 
fest itself. He could have shown himself to be full of love 
and compassion, to be a comforter and helper, in many ways 
besides by a sudden banishment of sickness and physical 
suffering. If the essential thing was to make himself known 
as a spiritual benefactor, he could have accomplished the end 
without making use of a talent which he himself represented, 
or at least allowed to be understood, as a proof of a super- 
natural commission. Unless his healing power really was such 
a proof, unless it was a supernatural power, the physical relief 
which it rendered to a few hundreds of his contemporaries 
would but feebly compensate for the moral injury done by 
gaining a reputation under false pretenses. 



this were so, these acts of healing would not be miracles in the strictly scien- 
tific sense." 

1 E.g., Luke xi. 20; Mark ii. 9, 10; Matt. xi. 5 ; John iii. 2; Acts ii. 22. 

2 Matt. xi. 5. 



PROOF OF THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 217 

Unless, therefore, the would-be philosophical critic means to 
make Jesus a mere mesmerizer, magician, or false prophet, 
hardly equal to the wonderful Apollonius of Tyana ; 1 if he 
really means to set him forth as a unique reformer and bene- 
factor, or eyen as an inspired Head of the Kingdom of God, 
then no worse means to attain the end could be adopted than 
to reduce his miracles to nothing but effects of a peculiar 
neryous temperament, or of a secret art, such as many another 
has possessed before and after him. Christ is by such a process 
degraded to the rank of an impostor, rather than honored as a 
chosen Eevealer of the divine character and counsels. It is, 
therefore, a suicidal criticism which, while professing to be 
Christian, yet whittles down the stories of miracles till nothing 
but the cures is left, and whittles down the cures till nothing is 
left but what can be " comprehended," that is, conceived to be 
accomplished by natural means. Thus Weizsacker 2 says : "It 
is not the use of medical means, or treatment according to 
medical knowledge, by which the wonderful successes of this 
healing can be brought within the law of nature. It is rather 
the peculiar phenomenon of a great storm-like excitement of 
men's minds, which is reflected in these effects wrought on 

1 On whom cf. F. C. Baur, Apollonius von Tyana unci Christ us ; J. H. New- 
man, Life of Apollonius Tyaneus, in the Encyclopedia Metropolitana, vol. x. 

2 TJntersuchungen iiber die evang. Gesch., p. 369. The ease with which a 
theory can be deduced is well illustrated by Weizsacker. The theory is that 
the work of healing was a sort of accidental consequence of the excitement 
which Jesus' preaching had produced. He refers to the narrative in Mark i. 
21 sqq., and finds in it an indication that a general commotion had been pro- 
duced by the preaching, aud that the excitement manifested itself especially 
in the demoniac. The thought of acting the part of a healer, Weizsacker 
thinks, did not occur to Jesus till after the demoniac addressed him. Then 
"as if himself carried away with the experience, he takes without hesitation 
the hand of the woman sick of a fever, in order to raise her up; and when the 
others bring him their sick he cannot do otherwise than heal them" (p. 365). 
The Evangelist, he further says, has "involuntarily shown," in the following 
narrative, " how Jesus entered upon this new career because of an inward 
and outward compulsion rather than intentionally" (p. 366). TVe shall next 
be informed, perhaps, that the whole work of salvation was the result of some 
fortunate accident, so that Jesus will seem to have blundered into it rather 
than to have had any deliberate and conscious plan about it. 



218 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

physical life and its diseases. If one will have a natural 
explanation of these signs, they belong to the realm of what 
faith — a state of the feelings stirred up to the highest pitch — 
is able to do in such respects. Even if this effect may have 
surpassed in intensity and extent everything else known of a 
similar sort, yet it is not absolutely incomprehensible, but falls 
into the category of phenomena which repeat themselves in 
accordance with a law." 

Now such speculations may seem to the authors of them 
very profound and satisfactory; but in reality they explain 
nothing, and create greater difficulties than they remove. A 
wonderful cure is " explained " just as truly when it is said to 
have been effected by a direct intervention of supernatural 
power, as when it is said to have been effected by the use of 
so-called natural means. In neither case can we follow out the 
connection between causes and effects ; in both cases we assume 
an adequate cause, — in the one a natural cause, in the other 
a supernatural. It is true that a phenomenon is said to be 
scientifically "explained" when it is associated with others 
which have similar antecedents and consequents, that is, when 
it is found to have been produced by a force which acts uni- 
formly and regularly under like circumstances. But just so a 
miraculous event is " explained," when it is assumed to have 
been produced by a force which does not act uniformly and 
regularly, but exceptionally and for an extraordinary reason. 
As to the modus operandi, we understand, in the last analysis, 
neither the one nor the other. It is a simple question of fact, 
to be decided according to the evidence, whether the cures 
wrought by Jesus belong to the one or to the other of these 
categories. Those who are determined to make them "com- 
prehensible " by making them natural can of course do so by 
a sufficient number of hypotheses and by a sufficient manipu- 
lation of the records. One can discover the " original " docu- 
ments by judiciously sifting out all the stories of marvels that 
cannot be made to square with the " natural " explanation of the 
events. Not only miracles wrought on inanimate nature, but also 
the cures which seem too difficult to be effected by any known 
natural means, — such as the healing of lepers, the sudden gift 



PROOF OF THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 219 

of sight to one born blind, or of soundness to one lame from 
birth, and, especially, the raising of the dead to life, — are 
" scientifically " transferred into the category of later legendary 
accretions. And so, as genuine history, we have nothing left 
which may not find its parallel, in kind at least, if not in 
degree, in events which take place in all ages. 

But, as we have seen, all this is arbitrary criticism, and plays 
into the hands of the downright disbeliever in Christianity. 
It leads almost inevitably to the frivolous Eenan's doctrine, that 
Jesus became a party to a deception, in that he allowed himself 
to be urged on, almost in spite of himself, into the assumption 
of powers which he knew to be natural, but which he allowed 
the people to regard as supernatural and as therefore an attest- 
ation of his divine calling. But this is as irreconcilable with 
the lofty simplicity of Christ as it is with the uniform assertions 
and implications of the Gospel narratives. The works of healing, 
like the other mighty works, were outward credentials of Jesus' 
supernatural commission. All alike were included by Peter on 
the day of Pentecost when he spoke (Acts ii. 22) of Jesus 
Christ as " a man approved of God by mighty works and won- 
ders and signs which God did by him." And what Peter 
claimed for him, Christ claimed for himself, when, in affirma- 
tion and proof of his Messiahship, he sent back the messengers 
of the doubting Baptist with the reply (Matt. xi. 5.), " The blind 
receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, 
and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor 
have good tidings preached to them." 

In general, therefore, the miracles ascribed to Christ must 
be regarded as real miracles. The general presumption that a 
special revelation must be authenticated by supernatural mani- 
festations ; the particular fact of Christ's resurrection ; the 
impossibility of eliminating the accounts of miracles from the 
Gospels by any fair principles of criticism, — all this makes 
the fact of Christ's miraculous works practically as certain as 
that of his existence. But the question still remains, 

III. May not the miraculous stories of the New Testament 
be critically examined ? Must we accept every miraculous story 
just as it is found in the Gospels, without regard to its partic- 



220 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

ular character, use, and meaning ? Alleged miracles may be, 
apparently at least, useless or grotesque or even hurtful. If 
any of the reputed miracles of Christ seem to be of this sort, 
may we not, for any such reason, question their genuineness ? 
Or if the narrative of the miracle appears, according to internal 
or external indications, to be of doubtful authenticity, may we 
not at least hold our judgment in suspense as to the fact of its 
literal occurrence ? 

In general our answer must be an affirmative one. For we 
can as yet make no assumptions respecting any exceptional 
inspiration and infallibility of the Biblical records. As Profes- 
sor Ladd well says, 1 " The record cannot of itself give an un- 
failing guaranty to the miracle it records without being itself 
a kind of universal miracle." Our argument simply assumes 
that the Biblical history shall be treated with the same fairness 
as other histories. Criticism cannot be denied the right of 
questioning the origin and authenticity of the New Testament. 
The results of criticism must be reckoned with, in coming to any 
legitimate theory of inspiration. We only insist now that, the 
general fact of the occurrence of miracles and their purpose as 
signs of a supernatural commission being sufficiently established, 
all intrinsic objections to the miraculous as such are to be dis- 
missed. But it does not follow that every alleged miracle is 
therefore a real one. And among the grounds for believing in 
the genuineness of some rather than in that of others are the 
character and apparent object of the miracle itself. Albert 
Barnes says : 2 " It is a striking proof of his [Jesus'] benevolence 
that his miracles tended directly to the comfort of mankind. 
It was a proof of goodness added to the direct purpose for which 
his miracles were wrought. That purpose was to confirm his 
divine mission ; and it might have been as fully done by split- 
ting rocks, or removing mountains, or causing water to run up 
steep hills, as by any other display of power. He chose to 
exhibit the proof of his divine power, however, in such a way 
as to benefit mankind." Pressensd, on the other hand, says : 3 

1 Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 328. 

2 Comm. on Matt. viii. 33. 

3 Jesus Christ, his Times, Life, and Work, 3d ed. p. 279. 



PROOF OF THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 221 

" Let us, first of all. make a distinction between a miracle and 
a prodigy. A prodigy is only a manifestation of power, an as- 
tonishing fact, which arrests the attention, and elicits admiration 
and amazement quite apart from its moral character. Clearly 
it has no religious value ; it appeals to the eye, and not to the 
heart and conscience ; it cannot serve to establish either a divine 
mission or a new truth ; for evil itself may have extraordinary 
manifestations, and we read in Scripture of prodigies aiding and 
abettincr error." 

o 

Now in judging between these opposing views, each held by 
a firm believer in the reality and evidential value of the Chris- 
tian miracles, we cannot do better than to ascertain what were 
Christ's own claims and representations respecting his miracles. 
In John x. 32, Jesus says to the Jews, " Many good works 
have I shewed you from the Father." And in the answer 
returned to John the Baptist concerning his Messiahship he 
enumerates nothing but works of mercy, the climax being the 
preaching of good tidings to the poor. Similarly Peter (Acts x. 
38) says of him that he " went about doing good, and healing 
all that were oppressed of the devil ; for God was with him." 
In other cases (as, for example, Luke x. 13) Christ speaks more 
generally of his " mighty works " as evidencing his commission. 
But those works were confessedly almost or quite all benevolent 
works ; and a general appeal to them would therefore be practi- 
cally an appeal to " good works." Manifestly, stories of miracles 
of malevolence or of revenge, such as abound in some of the 
apocryphal Gospels, 1 would be regarded as intrinsically incredi- 
ble in one who was what Jesus is represented as being. But 
might not mere prodigies be consistent with his character ? 
And would they not serve as proofs of his claims ? What we 
have urged above would indicate a negative answer. Mere 
prodigies, unless proceeding from one already well authenticated 
as a messenger from God, might be regarded as works of leger- 
demain or of the devil. But in the case of one whose divine com- 
mission is already established by miraculous works of benevolence, 

1 Cf. Cowper, The Apocryphal Gospels ; especially the Gospel of Pseudo- 
Matthew, which describes the child Jesus as killing his playmates by a word 
when they were naughty. 



222 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

works of mere miraculous power, expressive of no character and 
no important truth, would be needless, and because needless, 
suspicious. They would, seem to be mere ostentatious displays, 
not in consonance with the character of the alleged miracle- 
worker. Accordingly in the few instances in which the re- 
ported miracles of Christ seem to partake of the character of 
prodigies no one can be content to regard them as being a mere 
display of power. For example, the miraculous draught of fishes 
(Luke v. 1-11), or, still more, the finding of a coin in a fish's 
mouth (Matt. xvii. 24-27), is usually regarded as having some 
other object than a mere exhibition of miraculous power. 1 If 
no other, no worthy, use or meaning could be found in them, 
that would of itself lead one to wonder whether the narrative 
could be fully trusted. If Jesus came in order to reveal the 
grace and truth of God, it was to be expected that his works, 
as well as his words, should be full of grace and truth. 2 The 
miracles, in order to prove the teachings, must be cognate and 
consistent with the teachings. 

While, therefore, we deny that it is possible for criticism to do 
away with the miraculous, and must leave the Gospel narra- 
tives substantially as they are, we cannot deny one's right to 
question the accuracy of certain particular narratives of mir- 
acles, provided there are especial reasons for doubt. If to any 
one who accepts the general description of Jesus, his character, 
and his works, as truthful, any particular narrative seems to be 
irreconcilable with the general account, and seems, besides, to 
be feebly attested or inconsistent with other certain facts, such 
a one cannot be charged with inexcusable temerity, if he hesi- 
tates to give unqualified credence to the narrative. So long as 
the particular doubts are grounded in the general faith itself, 
they cannot be called unchristian doubts, even though others 
may deem them without sufficient warrant. To take a particu- 
lar instance : may one doubt the miraculous conception of 
Jesus Christ, and yet retain a belief in the New Testament nar- 
ratives of miracles in general ? It is certain that many do take 

1 Cf. Trench, Notes on the Miracles. 

2 Cf. Bruce, Chief End of Revelation, pp. 157 sq. The Miraculous Element in 
the Gospels, pp. 301-314. 



PROOF OF THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 223 

this position. The account of the birth is given in two narra- 
tives difficult to reconcile with one another. The strict Davidic 
descent of Jesus, everywhere assumed in the New Testament, 
seems to be inconsistent with the narratives. John, who ought 
to have known as well as any one else about the facts, and 
whose general representation of Jesus as the divine Logos made 
flesh would incline him to lay stress on such an origin, nowhere 
asserts or implies it. The same may be said of Paul. The rea- 
sons which may seem to tell in favor of an incarnation taking 
place without the agency of a human father may equally be 
urged against the agency of a human mother. Accordingly 
such a scholar as Meyer, who finds no difficulty in accepting 
the miracles in general, regards the stories found in Matthew 
and Luke as legendary. 1 Dorner, 2 on the other hand, while con- 
tending that the historic record is presumptively genuine and 
authentic, yet does not depend simply on the ipse dixit of the 
historian for the proof of the miracle, but brings forward rea- 
sons for thinking it a priori probable that the birth was mirac- 
ulous. There is a possibility of an early admixture of legendary 
matter in the evangelical narratives. On the other hand, no 
one can ever prove that these particular narratives are legend- 
ary. To the most the narrative of the miraculous conception 
will always appear to be in excellent harmony with the general 
description of the life, character, and work of the Messiah. It 
will doubtless continue to be believed by the most of those who 
hold to supernatural Christianity at all. But there will always 
be some Christian minds to whom this account of the mi- 
raculous conception will seem inherently improbable. A still 
greater number probably will stumble at the story of the de- 
monized swine (Matt. viii. 28-33), and of the cursing of the bar- 
ren fig-tree (Matt. xxi. 18-20), and for the reason that they do not 
seem to be in harmony with the general character and ordinary 
miracles of Christ. In like manner the story of the rising of 
the saints after the crucifixion of Christ, told only by Matthew 
(xxvii. 52, 53), seems to many, who are not anti-supernatural- 
ists, intrinsically so improbable that they hesitate to believe in 

1 Comm. on Matt. i. 18, and Luke i. 54—56. 

2 System of Christian Doctrine, § 105. 



224 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

its literal truth. 1 Now with regard to these and a few other 
narratives we can only say that they are to be judged like the 
Biblical history in general, that is, are to be condemned, if con- 
demned at all, not because they narrate miracles, but because 
they tell of such miracles, or because for other reasons the nar- 
ratives appear to be of doubtful authenticity. 

But it cannot be too carefully borne in mind that one may 
easily be led to set up a canon which is not warranted by the 
facts. Thus one may lay it down as a fixed rule that, because 
the most of the miracles of Christ are acts of kindness to the 
suffering, therefore no acts of his shall be conceded to be mir- 
acles which have not that character. What right, however, 
has one to adopt any such criterion ? Why may not a miracle 
serve some other purpose than merely to render physical relief ? 
Why may it not embody a spiritual lesson ? So, when it is as- 
sumed that the miracles cannot operate directly upon inanimate 
nature, but must be confined to the realm of rational beings, 
we must ask, What warrant is there for any such limitation ? 
There is no ground for such an assumption which would not in 
the end do away with miracles entirely. It is more plaus- 
ible when it is declared that no alleged miracle can be credited, 
if it involves the doing of positive injury rather than benefit. 
Yet even here great caution is needed. All that we can as- 
suredly affirm is that Jesus could not have belied himself in 
doing his mighty works. A miracle which apparently indi- 
cates malevolence or injustice in the worker of it may really in- 
dicate no such thing. The same may be said of miracles which 
seem to have no worthy end, or no recognizable end at all. To 
be sure, it may be said, with Mr. Barnes, that splitting rocks or 
making water run up hill, even if it had no other purpose, 
would serve the purpose of authenticating the spoken message 
as divine. But, as we have seen, such prodigies alone would 
never have answered the end of effectually authenticating his 
divine commission. While it is true that the miracles of Christ 
did serve to authenticate his mission, the whole drift and tone of 
the history, as well as the words of Christ himself, warrant us 

1 Cf. on this, Prof. J. H. Thayer, article " Saints " in Am. edition of Smith's 
Bible Dictionary. 



PROOF OF THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 225 

in asserting that the miracles had also a meaning and an end 
apart from the mere purpose of authenticating a revelation. 
Gathering from the history itself the general characteristics of 
his miracles, we may properly be suspicious of a particular al- 
leged miracle, if it plainly conflicts with those general character- 
istics. But it may be difficult or impossible to prove such a 
conflict in the case of any of the New Testament miracles. 

IV. General conclusion. The burden of the foregoing pages 
has been to the effect that the supernatural is an indispensable 
and irremovable part and proof of the divinity of the Christian 
religion. It has not been claimed that miracles as such are the 
most important thing in Christianity. Men are not saved by 
belief in miracles, but by belief in Christ. The great thing in 
the Christian life is not a correct view of God's relation to the 
physical laws of the universe, but a correct moral relation of 
man towards God. The vital thing is a readiness to welcome 
the gift of salvation. But whom shall one welcome as the bearer 
of the gift ? Not every one who comes forward with an offer 
of help or advice. He who would be accepted as the world's 
Eedeemer must bring with him credentials which are able to 
convince men that he is able to do what no one else can 
do, — that he is sent by God to accomplish the unique work of 
bringing light and deliverance to a world lying in darkness 
and bondage. Such an exceptional commission requires excep- 
tional attestation. It can be established only by the exhibi- 
tion of extraordinary credentials. What the contemporaries of 
Jesus chiefly needed was indeed spiritual deliverance and light. 
But that Jesus was the one appointed of God to bring the 
needed help required to be demonstrated, as it was demon- 
strated, by his manifestation of supernatural power and super- 
natural gifts. 

And what was true at the outset is true still. Of course 
there is a certain difference between the impression which Jesus 
made on those with whom he walked and talked, and the im- 
pression which those receive who learn about him through the 
medium of oral and written tradition. Still the picture which 
we receive in this way is essentially the same as the original, 

15 



226 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

though seen, as it were, in a mirror. The same proofs which 
persuaded the first disciples are valid also for us, though they 
come mediately. There are, it is true, subjective proofs, coming 
from the personal experience of Christians, — the witness of the 
Spirit ; but these proofs were accorded also to the original be- 
lievers. Our assurance that these experiences are not subjec- 
tive illusions comes largely from the confirmatory experience 
of the apostles and of the succession of Christians from their 
day to ours. What we lose in the directness and vividness of 
perception we gain in this accumulation of Christian experience. 
But still the general fact remains unchanged: What convinces 
us must be the same as what convinced Jesus' immediate fol- 
lowers. If they were deceived as to the substance of their 
belief, then that deception runs necessarily all through the 
Christian church. If they were rightly convinced, then the 
grounds of their conviction are of permanent validity. And 
there is hardly a proposition in the world of moral and his- 
torical truth more indisputable than that the first Christians 
became fully convinced of Jesus' Messiahship only as they 
recognized him as possessed of supernatural qualities and su- 
pernatural powers, and as supernaturally accredited by miracu- 
lous works, and especially by his miraculous resurrection from 
the dead. 

If, now, the rationalist pleads for the rights of reason, and 
insists that nothing can be believed which does not stand the 
test of a rational investigation, the reply is that the Christian's 
reason is convinced that Jesus Christ was supernaturally com- 
missioned and accredited, and that faith is therefore in agree- 
ment with reason and not opposed to it. If, on the other hand, 
the mystic claims that he has an immediate spiritual intuition 
of the divinity of Christ and of his work, and therefore needs 
no argument from miracles, the reply is that a historical reve- 
lation cannot be detached from the historical evidence of it. 
If each individual has, or thinks he has, a direct revelation of 
religious truth, then the local and historical appearance and 
work of Christ on the earth are dwarfed into insignificance, and 
revelation becomes practically the private privilege of each 
individual. 



PROOF OF THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 227 

Every attempt — whether of the rationalist or of the mystic — 
to attain to a state of religious assurance thus ends in a sort 
of assurance which, just because it rests primarily on a merely 
individual judgment or impression, is necessarily affected with 
insecurity. Just so surely as religion is not merely a matter of 
individual preference or caprice, but is a matter which produces 
a social life, and is conditioned by it, so surely must the grounds 
on which it rests be such as can satisfy a community, and not 
merely an individual. The evidences of Christianity, then, are 
the evidences which produced the conviction of Jesus' Messiah- 
ship in John, Peter, and Paul, and all the original disciples, — 
evidences handed down from one generation to another in the 
Christian church, but confirmed by its self -perpetuating power, 
and by its salutary influence on the world. 

But it may be said that there is this important difference 
between us and the first Christians, that they were Jews, and 
came to their Christian belief through the medium of their 
Jewish notions and expectations ; whereas Gentiles come to an 
acceptance of Christianity by an entirely different process. The 
Jews were looking for a Messiah who should give them national 
independence. They had a ceremonial law which gave a pe- 
culiar shape to their religious conceptions. Their minds, there- 
fore, must have come to the consideration of Jesus' character 
and claims otherwise than oars do ; they must have been moved 
by different arguments from those which are decisive with us. 

What shall be said to this ? It is certainly true that the 
ordinary Christian now does not have to go through the process 
of substituting Christianity for Judaism. It is true that the 
first Gentile Christians also came into the Christian faith from 
a different environment from that of the Jews ; they came out 
from a different group of prepossessions ; they were moved by 
a somewhat different kind of persuasion. And accordingly the 
two classes of Christians were at the outset characterized by 
different phases. The work of amalgamating them into one 
homogeneous Christian church was a difficult one. Even among 
the apostles there was at first a diversity of view and feeling. 
So much must be conceded. But what then ? Our main propo- 



228 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

sition remains still unaffected. The Gentiles were converted 
through the preaching of the Jewish Christians. Great as may 
have been the difference between Gentile and Jew, the Gentile 
was somehow persuaded by the Jew. And therefore he must 
have been persuaded by considerations which were persuasive 
to the Jew. Moreover, the Jewish Christians did not come to 
their faith by seeing all their old Jewish prejudices and expec- 
tations confirmed in Jesus. On the contrary, they had to sur- 
render many of their hopes and alter many of their conceptions, 
before they came fully to recognize in him the real Messiah. 
That which was one-sidedly and narrowly national in their ex- 
pectations ; that which was crass and outward in their religious 
notions, — this had to be abandoned. With the acceptance of 
Jesus as their Eedeemer, they were led to revise and spiritualize 
their views of themselves and of others. That which decisively 
convinced them of Jesus' Messiahship was not his fulfilment 
of exactly what they had understood the Old Testament to 
promise them; it was rather the extraordinary character of 
Jesus himself, and the extraordinary attestations that accom- 
panied his person and work, — attestations which convinced 
them of his divine commission and authority. Accordingly 
Peter at Jerusalem, and Paul at Athens, while they adapted 
their discourses to their respective audiences, yet both preached 
Jesus' resurrection from the dead as the decisive proof of his 
being God's messenger of salvation. 

It remains, then, an evident fact that the Christian world has 
become Christian through the preaching of the original Jewish 
converts. But this brings us to a consideration of Judaism as 
the precursor of Christianity. 



THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 229 



CHAPTEK VIII. 

THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 

IF the first disciples found it necessary to reconstruct their 
religious conceptions when they received Jesus as their 
Eedeemer, does it not follow that Christianity is substantially 
independent of Judaism, — no more an offshoot from it than 
it is from the nobler forms of heathenism ? Christianity being 
designed for all, professing to be the fulfilment of all true reli- 
gious prophecies and hopes, must not all preceding religions be 
regarded as in their way preparatory to it ? The heathen were 
not without much true light ; and in their philosophy, morality, 
and religion, as well as in their civilization, they produced much 
that is of abiding value. 1 Accordingly the early Christians who 
were converted from among the Gentiles were fond of finding 
the X070? GTrepiiaTLKos among the heathen of the ante-Christian 
world. 2 

When, however, one attempts to make out that Christianity 
is essentially of Aryan, as distiDguished from Jewish, origin, as 
is done by Emile Burnouf, it is manifest that the attempt must 
be a failure. The hypothesis, itself contradictory to all the pre- 
sumptions and traditions, is fortified by another equally baseless 
one, namely, that the most essential features of Christianity ex- 

1 Cf. Doraer, Christian Doctrine, § 65. 

2 Cf. Justin Martyr, Apol. I. c. 46, " Those who lived according to reason 
are Christians, even though accounted atheists. Such among the Greeks were 
Socrates and Heraclitus, and those who resembled them." So, Apot. II. c. 10, 
he speaks of Christ as " known even to Socrates in part." Similar sentiments 
are found in Clemens Alexandrinus ; e.g., Stromata, Book I. chap. xix. ; Book 
VI. chap, v., " The same God that furnished both the Covenants was the giver 
of Greek philosophy to the Greeks, by which the Almighty is glorified among the 
Greeks." So chap. viii. Cf. also Tertullian, Be testimonio animae, and Ad 
nationes, chap. iv. Eor parallels between the writings of the N. T. and those 
of the heathen, see E. Spiess, Logos Spermatikos. 



230 SUPERNATUKAL REVELATION. 

is ted at first only as a "secret doctrine," communicated by Jesus 
to Peter, James, and John, and by them to a select few, and so 
on, till after the conversion of Constantine, when the secrecy 
was fully removed. 1 This esoteric doctrine, it is maintained 
with a great array of learning, came from the Veda, through the 
Zendavesta, the prophet Daniel, a select few among the Jews 
after the Babylonish captivity, the Essenes, and the Therapeu- 
tics, and finally was taught in its completeness by Jesus to 
his disciples, but only secretly. The religion being essentially 
Aryan, it was not acceptable to most of the Jews, and accord- 
ingly found most favor among the Gentiles. The proof of all 
this is found in certain striking resemblances existing between 
the sacred books and symbols of the Indians and Persians, on 
the one hand, and those of the Christian church on the other. 
And all through the discussion there runs the assumption that 
religion is a metaphysical conception culminating in the institu- 
tion of symbolic rites. 2 

Now that Greek philosophy was an important agent in 
moulding the form of early Christian theology need not be 
denied. 3 And all through the Middle Ages and up to the 
present time, doubtless, may be traced the influence of that 
same philosophy. But the assertion that Christianity not only 
is, in its real essence, nothing but a metaphysical speculation, 
but, as such, was handed down secretly by a society of the 

1 Science of Religions, chap. iv. There is a sublime audacity in Bumouf's as- 
sertions which would be almost enough to carry conviction, were it not that 
one is soon puzzled and perplexed by his obscurity and self-contradictions. 
Thus at one time he gives us to understand that this esoteric doctrine was kept 
among the initiated until the time of Constantine (p. 51) ; immediately after- 
wards we are informed that Paul, having got possession of the secret science, 
"preached it in the streets and on the housetops " (p. 54). Still later (p. 55) 
we are told that the rise of heretical doctrines in the church made it necessary 
to " divulge altogether the last concealed formulas," and this was done by the 
publication of the Gospel of John, which appeared between 160 and 170 a. d. 
(p. 66). After this, it is said, the secret teaching had no longer a raison d'etre. 

2 Ibid., p. 168. 

8 A truth emphasized, but overworked, by Harnack in his Dogmengeschichte. 
Harnack's fundamental point of view is quite the opposite of Burnouf s ; it 
is, that dogma is not only not the vital thing in Christianity, but, properly 
speaking, is an excrescence. 



THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 231 

initiated, coming directly through Jesus, not from the Old 
Testament but from the Zenda vesta, — this sounds almost more 
like a joke than like a serious proposition. The striking 
resemblances which may be found between the Buddhistic 
and the Eoman Catholic ritual, even if it were demonstrated 
that the latter was borrowed from the former, cannot 
prove the essential dependence of Christianity on Buddhism, 
except to a mind which can find in Christianity nothing 
more than a metaphysical theory and a complicated system 
of rites. 

Jesus Christ was a Jew; his apostles were all Jews. He 
declared himself to be the fulfilment of the Jewish prophecies 
and of the hopes of pious Jews. The Gentiles, indeed, were 
also to be evangelized, but they were expected to accept Jesus 
as the Messiah promised to Israel, and to acknowledge the 
Mosaic dispensation as the chief revelation previously made. 
The Fourth Gospel, which Burnouf 2 pronounces to be " filled 
with Aryan ideas," no less than the others represents Jesus as 
the Messiah of the Jews, and his gospel as the fulfilment of 
Jewish types and prophecies. 2 The Christian Scriptures recog- 
nize indeed not only the self-manifestation of God in nature 
(Eom. i. 19, 20) and in the human conscience (ii. 14, 15), 
but also the reality of earlier revelations than the Mosaic and 
the Abrahamic, — which in men like Melchizedek and Job are 
represented as bearing noble fruit among the Gentiles. But 
nowhere do Christ and his apostles put the heathen nations 
on a par with the Jewish race as the recipients of divine 
revelations. It would be superfluous to refer to the numerous 
passages in which both the Evangelists, and Christ as reported 
by them, represent the Christian revelation as the completion 
of the Mosaic, and recognize the Jews as God's chosen people, 
and the Old Testament as of peculiar divine authority. And 
if we undertake to break the force of these representations by 
assuming that the Evangelists have misreported Christ under 
the influence of their Jewish predilections, then we must 

1 Science of Religions, chap. iv. p. 55. 

2 John i. 45, 49 ; iv. 25, 26; v. 39, 45-47; xii. 13, 41; xiii. 18; xix. 24; 
xx. 9. 31. 



232 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

conclude that we know nothing certainly about him at all. 
For the Evangelists are unanimous in giving us this repre- 
sentation, and there is absolutely no counter-evidence by which 
it can be rectified. 

Stress is indeed sometimes laid upon the difference between 
the Evangelists and the Apostle Paul, he being regarded as less 
under the control of Jewish conceptions and as representing 
Christianity in its more universal application. 1 But the truth 
is that Paul also, while he does emphasize the universality of 
the Christian revelation, and teaches more distinctly than others 
that the Mosaic law was superseded by the Christian dispensa- 
tion, yet recognizes Christianity as an offshoot from Judaism, 
and as a fulfilment of Jewish prophecy. Jesus is to him the 
son of David promised by the prophets (Eom. i. 2, 3 ; ix. 4, 5). 
He speaks of the Jews as especially entrusted with the oracles 
of God (iii. 2 ; ix. 4), and of Abraham the Hebrew as the father 
of the faithful (iv. 1-18 ; Gal. iii. 7). To the Gentile Christians 
he speaks of the Jews as the good olive tree, and of the Gentile 
converts as wild olive branches grafted in contrary to nature 
(Eom. xi. 17-24). To the Corinthians he speaks of the Mosaic 
history as prefiguring Christ (1 Cor. x. 1-4). The death and 
resurrection of Christ are declared by him to be a fulfilment 
of the Jewish Scriptures (1 Cor. xv. 3, 4). The Christian dis- 
pensation is represented as taking the place of the Mosaic (2 
Cor. iii. 7-11). The Mosaic law is recognized by him as a tutor 
to bring men to Christ (Gal. iii. 24), and the Abrahamic covenant 
as fulfilled in Christ (iii. 14 sqq.). However true, now, it may be 
that Paul, more clearly than the other apostles, recognized the 
universality of Christianity, and that he was more prompt than 
they to give up the outward forms of Judaism when he saw the 
inward spirit of it fulfilled in Christ, yet none the less true is it 
that he, like the others, regarded the Hebrew dispensation as a 
supernatural revelation, and Christianity as organically con- 
nected with it in a sense which could not be affirmed of any 
other religion. There is essential agreement among them all. 
Jesus and all his apostles looked on the Christian dispensation 

1 Thus Pfleiderer, Religionsphilosophie, vol. ii. p. 197, represents it as 
Paul's great work to detach Christianity from Judaism. 



THE RELATION OE CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 233 

as the fruitage and fulfilment of the Jewish, while they also all 
looked on it as a gospel for all men. 

Christianity, therefore, is inextricably blended with Judaism. 
An assault on the divine authority of the one involves an assault 
on that of the other, — from the Christian point of view at least. 
The Jew may doubt whether Judaism points forward to Jesus 
of Xazareth and the religion which he preached. But the 
Christian cannot doubt that Jesus of Xazareth points backward 
to Isaiah, David, and Moses. 

Or may it be thought that possibly Jesus was to be trusted 
as a teacher of morality and religion, but fallible in his concep- 
tion of God's relation to the Jewish people ? May he not be 
implicitly believed in what he says about himself and about 
general spiritual truth, while yet he shared the erroneous notions 
of his countrymen about God's special choice and supernatural 
guidance of them ? But this is a futile shift. For the question 
is not concerning certain incidental and external features of a 
revealed religion ; not about the correctness of transcription, the 
age and genuineness of certain Biblical books, the formation of 
the canon, the accuracy of subordinate and unimportant stories 
in the older records ; not even about the theory of types or of 
inspiration. The question is whether Jesus could have been 
what he claimed to be as the Light of the world, and yet be 
radically mistaken when he represented his revelation as the 
fulfilment of the Mosaic economy, when he represented the Old 
Testament dispensation as possessing a divine sanction, the 
Jews as in a peculiar sense God's chosen people, and himself as 
the Messiah prophesied and looked for by the Old Testament 
saints. And the answer to such a question cannot be doubtful. 
It is simply impossible to believe that a man could erroneously 
suppose God to have supernaturally revealed himself to Moses 
and the prophets, and yet be himself chosen by God as the one 
authoritative Eevealer of the divine will and love. Moral 
superiority may indeed co- exist with intellectual imperfection ; 
but whoever is to be an authoritative revealer of divine truth 
needs some other qualification than mere innocence of heart. 
If Jesus was wrong in calling Judaism a divine revelation pre- 
paratory to his own, then he was in error in respect to the very 



234 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

question concerning which he professed to be able to speak with 
infallible authority. He who calls that a revelation which is 
not one, is not the man to communicate a true one. 

This is the general fact. Every one who recognizes the reli- 
gious authority of Jesus must acknowledge the Mosaic econ- 
omy to be in some emphatic sense a divine revelation, and 
the prophets of the Old Covenant as divinely inspired. But 
this general proposition leaves still some particular questions 
open. 

1. How far and in what sense did Christ regard himself and 
his work as prophesied by Moses, and by the Hebrew prophets 
and psalmists ? That he represented himself as foretold or 
prefigured in some sense and to some extent, we have already 
seen ; and this lies so obviously on the surface of the New 
Testament record as to need no argument. But it does not 
follow that he understood the Jewish statesmen, seers, and poets 
as all predicting the Christian dispensation with minuteness, or 
with distinct consciousness of the time and exact nature of the 
things that were to be in the future. There is another course 
possible, namely, that of holding that in many, if not in most, 
cases the alleged prophecy is not direct, but indirect ; that the 
Old Testament passage is not so much & foretelling as a fore- 
shadovnng of the Christian dispensation ; that the institutions, 
events, and prominent personages of the older economy, and 
likewise, in many cases, the language of the Old Testament 
writers, were predictive of Christianity in the sense that they 
were typical of it, but not necessarily in the sense that the 
authors of the Old Testament consciously intended any direct 
reference to an antitype, or to a fulfilment, in a higher sense, 
of their utterances. 1 

That much in the Old Testament was typical of the Christian 
dispensation is admitted by all who accept the New Testament 
itself as authoritative. The Epistle to the Hebrews sets forth 

1 So such writers as Tholuck, Das alte Testament im neuen Testament; De- 
litzsch, Commentary on the Psalms ; Messianic Prophecies ; P. Fairbairn, Typo- 
logy of Scripture; Ladd, Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. pp. 63 sqq. ; C. A. 
Briggs, Messianic Prophecy, § 19 ; Riehm, Messianic Prophecy ; Perowne, The 
Book of Psalms. 



THE KELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 235 

this view with such particularity and emphasis that no one 
can mistake it. But this does not answer the question, how far 
the typical interpretation of the Old Testament is to be carried. 
Shall we, with Origen and his followers, find an allegorical or 
spiritual meaning, or even numerous such meanings, in every 
part of the Old Testament ? Shall there be unlimited license 
given to the imagination in searching out occult analogies 
between Old Testament history and the facts and truths of 
Christianity ? Or, if we recoil from the lawless extravagances 
of such interpreters, shall we go to the opposite extreme, and 
deny that there is any such thing as a type in the Old 
Testament, more than in profane history ? Or, if we do not 
go so far as this, shall we say that nothing is to be called 
typical which is not in the Xew Testament thus designated? 
The latter view, advocated with great ability by such men as 
Bishop Marsh 1 and Moses Stuart, 2 seems to be the simplest and 
most free from danger of abuse. The principle they lay down 
is very plausible, namely, that Biblical language, like all other 
language, must be interpreted according to the laws of language ; 
that what a man says or writes means but one thing, and that 
that thing is what the author meant, not what any one else 
may arbitrarily make it mean ; that if we admit a " double 
sense " as characterizing Scriptural language, we may as well 
admit a hundred senses, and are amenable to no law of interpre- 
tation but our own will and caprice. These writers, moreover, 
exclude absolutely all language from the domain of typology. 
" Type," says Professor Stuart, " means a resemblance of two 
things, not an occult sense of words." 3 Consequently, every 
utterance of the Old Testament writers is declared to be either 
wholly and exclusively prophetic, or not prophetic in any proper 
sense at all. When the New Testament writers quote, as if 
referring to Christian truths, language from the Old Testament, 
which evidently was not meant by the writer as prophetic of 
Christianity, then this is called a mere accommodation or 
illustration. The Old Testament is supposed to be used in 

1 Lectures on the Criticism and Interpretation of the Bible, Cambridge, 1828. 

2 Hints on the Interpretation of Prophecy, 2d ed., New York, 1851. 
8 Ibid,, p. 33. 



236 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

such a case merely as an object or event in nature or secular 
history might be used. 

It is just here that the weakness of this view, otherwise so 
simple and plausible, begins to appear. The New Testament 
refers in precisely the same way to different parts of the Old 
Testament as being fulfilled. For example, Christ is said in 
John xix. 28, to have said, " I thirst," in order " that the 
Scripture might be fulfilled." The passage referred to is Ps. 
lxix. 21. On the other hand, Paul says (Acts xiii. 33) that in 
Christ's resurrection "God hath fulfilled" Ps. ii. 7. Now any 
one reading these two New Testament passages finds no dis- 
tinction indicated as to the sense in which fulfilment is used 
in the two cases. Or if there is any, it would seem to be that 
greater emphasis lies on it in the first case ; for there the event 
narrated is said to have taken place for the purpose of fulfilling 
the prophetic passage, whereas in the second case it is simply 
said that the prophecy was fulfilled. Nevertheless, Professor 
Stuart will have it that Ps. ii. is a purely prophetic psalm, 
meant by the writer to refer to Christ and nothing else; 
whereas Ps. lxix. he declares to be not prophetic in any 
sense and not meant to be such by the author. Why so sharp a 
distinction ? Simply because in Ps. lxix. 5 the author confesses 
his sins, whereas Christ was sinless ; consequently, that verse 
being inapplicable to Christ, none of the psalm can refer to 
him. On the other hand, Psalms ii., xvi., xxii., xlv., and ex. are 
pronounced to be directly Messianic, because of certain things 
in them which are regarded as not applicable to the author or 
subject of the psalm. But what becomes now of the great 
hermeneutical principle with which he starts out? That 
principle is that the Bible must be interpreted according to 
the usual laws of language. Now no application of that 
principle can be more obvious than that when a man says, " I 
do, feel, think, hope," etc., he means himself, unless he clearly 
indicates that he is putting the language into the mouth of 
another. But Ps. xvi. gives no such indication whatever. It 
is throughout, to all appearance, an utterance of David's per- 
sonal feelings towards God : " In thee do I put my trust. • • • 
The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places. . . . Therefore 



THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 237 

my heart is glad. . . . For thou wilt not leave my soul to 
Sheol, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption." 
Now by what authority does Professor Stuart, in defiance of all 
the laws of language, declare that David here is not giving 
utterance to his own feelings at all, but is writing prophetically 
what a thousand years later is going to be the fit expression of 
the feelings of Jesus Christ ? It is true, Peter (Acts ii, 25-32") 
and Paul (Acts xiii. 34-37) speak of a part of this psalm as 
fulfilled in Christ's resurrection. 1 But so they speak of other 
passages as fulfilled which Professor Stuart will not allow to 
be prophetic at all. If the New Testament, assumed to be 
infallibly inspired, gave us some criterion by which we could 
infallibly tell when it is quoting a strict prophecy, and when, 
on the other hand, it is only quoting illustratively, the case 
would be comparatively clear. But no rule is laid down or even 
suggested. The reader is obliged to exercise his own judgment. 

Now that there is a distinction to be made between passages 
that are directly prophetic of the Messiah and those which are 
ouly indirectly prophetic of him, cannot be denied. In interpret- 
ing the Old Testament we must use our common sense, and do no 
violence to the laws of language. So far we go with Marsh 
and Stuart. But just because we do so, we insist that when 
the New Testament writers speak about fulfilment, they mean 
fulfilment, if not always in precisely the same sense, yet in a 

1 It is chiefly on the ground of these passages, that Stuart, in a special Inter- 
pretation of Ps. xvi. {Biblical Repository, vol. i.), declares that the whole psalm 
must be treated as referring exclusively to Christ ; for Peter and Paul not only 
speak of the psalm as fulfilled in Christ, but seem to affirm that it does not hold 
true of David, because he had died and seen corruption. This sounds plausible; 
but Paul (1 Cor. ix. 9, 10), in quoting Deut. xxv. 4, even more emphatically de- 
nies the primary and obvious sense of the command, not to muzzle the ox when 
he is threshing : " Is it for the oxen that God careth, or saith he it altogether for 
our sake ? Yea, for our sake it was written." But must we really conclude 
that God does not care for oxen ? or that the Mosaic command had no refer- 
ence to oxen? The truth is that Ps. xvi., rising above the ordinary O. T. 
conceptions, pictures the author as being delivered from death, as not being 
given over to Sheol, but as enjoying in God's presence pleasures forever. Tins 
deliverance from the power of death in the strictest sense is fulfilled in Jesus, 
but was true of the Psalmist in the same sense that Jesus' declaration in John 
xi. 26 is true of the believer. 



238 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

real and honest sense. If they treat as Messianic Ps. xl., 
which seems to refer directly only to the writer, so also do they 
treat as Messianic Ps. xvi., which also seems to refer only to the 
writer. According to the laws of language, we naturally should 
treat the two cases alike, and declare that in either case the pri- 
mary reference was really to the author. No one would think 
of any other reference but for the use which the New Testament 
makes of these psalms. 

If now, in deference to this New Testament application of 
such Old Testament passages, we modify what would be other- 
wise our understanding of these passages, then our only rule of 
interpretation must be one which, while not conflicting with a 
sensible view of the Old Testament, is in harmony with the 
general drift of the New Testament. A blind and narrow fol- 
lowing of the New Testament might lead to the extreme of 
calling only such Old Testament passages Messianic as are 
quoted as Messianic in the New Testament, even though the 
immediate context of the quoted passages is manifestly not Mes- 
sianic. To this extreme William "Winston had the hardihood to 
go, when 1 he said respecting Hos. xi. 1 as used by Matthew 
(ii. 15) that this passage "is not only most exactly suitable in 
every word and expression to the Messias in particular, more 
properly than to the people of Israel in general of old time, but 
is also a prediction by itself, having no visible connection or 
coherence either with what went before, or what follows after 
in that book, and so was, I believe, a distinct prophecy con- 
cerning the Messias inserted into this coherence of the prophet, 
though it did not properly belong at all to it." But to this ex- 
treme no one can go without abandoning all common sense ; 
and Stuart well observes that " but little danger to the churches 

1 In his Accomplishment of Scripture Prophecies, p. 52 (170S). So Whiston 
regards Ps. lxxviii. 2, quoted in Matt. xiii. 35, as out of place in the psalm, 
and as directly applicable to Christ. In other cases, however, he loses 
courage, and resorts to the view that the Old Testament passage is no proph- 
ecy at all, but is fulfilled as any poetic description may be said to be fulfilled 
when something analogous occurs. So he treats Jer. xxxi. 15, as referred to 
in Matt. ii. 17, 18. Dean Burgon {Inspiration and Interpretation, pp. 191 so.) 
almost rivals Whiston, in what he says of Paul's use (Rom. x. 6-9) of Deut. 
xxx. 11-14. 



THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 239 

can ever arise from such an error." * But it is only one step 
short of this extreme when Stuart himself lays down the 
principle that only just those passages which are quoted as 
typical or prophetic of Christ must be treated as such, and even 
with regard to these exercises the right of making a broad dis- 
tinction between the different Old Testament passages such as 
the New Testament neither warrants nor hints at. 

What then are the decisive objections to this hermeneutical 
principle of Marsh and Stuart ? They are these : (1) It requires 
us to adopt a most mechanical rule in deciding what is typical 
in the Old Testament. It assumes that the New Testament 
authors have given an exhaustive catalogue of the types, when 
nothing can be clearer than that they undertook to do no such 
thing. Incidentally Christ and his apostles have referred to 
certain persons and events as signs or foretokens of the Messiah 
or of the Messianic dispensation. Jonah, David, Melchizedek, 
Sarah, and Hagar ; the exodus from Egypt and the passover, the 
serpent lifted up in the wilderness, the preservation of Noah, — 
these 2 and a few other events and persons are spoken of as if 
they in some way foreshadowed corresponding events and per- 
sons in the Messianic dispensation. No man can understand 
why just these and no other objects should be pronounced typi- 
cal, — why Jonah, Sarah, and Hagar should be found so much 
more significant than Joseph, Joshua, Gideon, and Samuel. 3 
We might indeed, if necessary, be content to accept the types 
specified in the New Testament as absolutely the only ones ; 
but why is it necessary ? In speaking of certain things as typi- 
cal, do the New Testament writers affirm that other things not 
spoken of are not typical ? Do they profess to give an exact 
and complete list of the types and symbols of the Mosaic econ- 
omy ? Certainly not. Well then, the natural inference would 
seem to be that there are other types than those that are men- 
tioned, rather than that there are not. But more than this, (2) 
there are certain general statements respecting the Old Testament 

1 Hints, etc., p. 13. 

2 Cf. Matt. xii. 40 ; Luke i. 32 ; Heb. yii.; Gal. iv. 22-25 ; Matt. ii. 15 ; 1 
Cor. v. 7 ; John iii. 14. 

8 Cf. Fairbairn, Typology, etc., p. 42. 



240 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

which directly assert that its typical significance is not limited 
to some few isolated things. They are such as these : Christ 
says (John v. 39) of the Old Testament Scriptures, " These are 
they which bear witness of me." And to the two disciples at 
Emmaus he " expounded in all the Scriptures the things con- 
cerning himself ; " and to the apostles he said : " These are my 
words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, how 
that all things must needs be fullfiled, which are written in 
the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms concerning 
me " (Luke xxiv. 27, 44). 2 When we compare with this his 
statement in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v. 17) : " Think 
not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets ; I am 
not come to destroy, but to fulfil," it is obvious that he con- 
ceived of the Old Testament in general as prophetic of him, — 
as something which it was his mission to fulfil. In perfect ac- 
cordance with this are general statements like these : In Col. 
ii. 16, Paul speaks of the ceremonial ordinances in general as 
" a shadow of the things to come." So in Heb. x. 1, the law in 
general is said to have "a shadow of the good things to come, 
not the very image of the things." In viii. 5, the priests are 
said to " serve that which is a copy and shadow of the heavenly 
things." Now these general and sweeping declarations not 
only allow, but require, us to understand more of the Old Tes- 
tament as prophetic of Christ than the comparatively few pas- 
sages which happen to be referred to by the New Testament 
writers. Moreover, these declarations show that Christ and 
his apostles regard the Mosaic dispensation as having a real and 
designed reference to the Christian dispensation, so that the 
former is " fulfilled " in no such loose sense as may be applied to 
any observed resemblance between any event and any preceding 
one; but that the connection is organic and divinely consti- 
tuted. Not otherwise can we understand the frequent state- 
ments respecting the necessity of the fulfilment. 2 

But still it may be urged that all this can properly be ap- 
plied only to institutions, to things, or at the most to persons, 

i Cf. Acts iii. 24. 

2 Matt. xxvi. 54-56; Mark xiv. 49; Luke xxi. 22; John xix. 28; Acts i. 
16, xvii. 3. 



THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 241 

but cannot be applied to language. But why not? Certain 
persons are unquestionably treated as types. Adam (Eom. v. 
14), Melchizedek (Heb. vii.), Jonah (Matt. xii. 40), and David 
(Acts xiii. 34-36) are certainly called types of Christ. Elijah 
(Mark ix. 13) is called a type of John the Baptist. But what 
is a person? Not the material body merely. If David pre- 
figured Christ, it must have been by virtue of his mind and 
character. The type consisted in part, no doubt, in the resem- 
blance as to office. King David typified the Head of the King- 
dom of heaven. But David, rather than another king, was a 
type of Christ because he was such a king, — a man after God's 
own heart. If so, if David prefigured Christ by virtue of what 
was ideal in his kingly character, then it follows necessarily 
that David's utterances are typical also ; for words are the 
expression of the inmost nature. 

We need, therefore, not be troubled by the bugbear of a 
"double sense." What David wrote about himself, he wrote 
about himself ; and he had no second sense in mind, as an 
occult meaning different from the primary and obvious mean- 
ing. But in so far as he himself foreshadowed his " greater 
Son," those psalms which were the outgush of his deepest 
thoughts and feelings were also a shadow of the inward ex- 
periences of Jesus Christ. When the psalmist * uttered the 
cry, " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " he gave 
utterance, doubtless, to his own feelings alone. There was no 
double sense in which he palters with us. But when Christ 
used the same language on the cross, he appropriated it to the 
expression of his own feeling. There is no double sense in the 
words any more than when any pious Christian appropriates to 
himself the language of a hymn which may in like manner 
have served as the medium for the outpouring of the senti- 
ments of ten thousand others before him. 2 The shades of 

1 Ps. xxii. 1. We do not need to assume the correctness of the ascription 
of the psalm to David, in order to the validity of our argument. It is equally 
valid, if some other pious sufferer was a type of Christ, even though unknown 
by name. 

2 Not that we mean that in the latter case there is a typical relation, as in 
the other. 

16 



242 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

experience and conception may be extremely various which are 
yet voiced by the one product of a poet's inspiration. 

We do not need here to consider in detail the question, how- 
far divine inspiration may in some cases have carried the writer 
beyond himself, as it were, so that his language most appro- 
priately describes something higher than himself. This would 
give us what Delitzsch 1 calls a typico-prophetical utterance. 
Nor is it necessary to decide the cases in which it is disputed 
whether the psalmist or prophet is uttering a directly Mes- 
sianic prophecy. In general, this is a question of exegesis, to 
be decided according to the preponderance of evidence. 

When we have once found that the typical interpretation of 
many passages is allowable, and that such passages are quoted 
as genuinely prophetic of the Messiah, we are relieved of all 
temptation to strain the natural and obvious meaning of the 
original. Many passages are directly prophetic of the Messiah 
to come, as, for example, Isa. ix. 1-7, Joel ii. 28-32, Micah v. 
2-5, Zech. ix. 9, 10, and probably such Psalms as Ps. ii., lxxii., 
ex.* But with reference to these it may be a question how far 
the writers in their conception of the Messianic times and per- 
sons were influenced by local and Jewish prepossessions, which 
have left their trace on the form of the prophetic forecast. 
These and other kindred questions must be left to the exegete, 
who has to judge, according to the best light he can gain from 
all sources, what was in the mind of the writer. 

The general truth then remains, with which we set out, that, 
according to Christ (and in this we may fairly regard his dis- 
ciples as substantially at one with him), the Old Testament in 
general is prophetic of him and his work. Whether prophets 
were moved to anticipate and describe a future King who 
should bring deliverance, peace, prosperity, and piety to his 
people ; or whether the pious, unconsciously to themselves, but 

1 Comm. on the Psalms, Clark's Foreign Theol. Library, p. 69. 

2 In the looser sense of " Messianic " those Psalms may also be so desig- 
nated which picture a future triumph of God's kingdom. So, e. g., Ps. xviii., 
xxiv., lxvii., lxviii., lxxvi., lxxxiii. The case of Ps. lxxii. is particularly in- 
structive. Scarcely any of the Psalms bears more decided internal marks of 
being genuinely Messianic, and has been more uniformly treated as such ; yet 
it is nowhere quoted in the New Testament at all. 



THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 243 

really in the divine intention, prefigured in their lives and 
utterances the person and experience of the Messiah to 
come, — in either case the Old Testament has upon it the 
seal of divinity ; it is authoritatively declared to be a divine 
revelation. 

2. Another question is : How far can Old Testament prophecy 
be used as an argument for the divinity of the Mosaic and the 
Christian dispensations ? By many this argument is regarded 
as of the first importance. The Old Testament prophecies may 
be divided into three general classes: those which indirectly 
or typically prophesy the Messiah ; those which directly pre- 
announce the coming of the Messiah ; and those which relate 
to other topics. The latter are of various sorts. A large num- 
ber of them consist of predictions respecting the heathen na- 
tions. Others concern individuals among the Jews, or relate 
to the Jews in general. 

Now it is manifest that the first class, the typical prophe- 
cies, can of themselves furnish little or no proof of a divine 
revelation. A type is something having a designed resemblance 
to something else ; but resemblances real or imaginary are so 
numerous and so easy to find in the world that they prove no 
supernatural agency. It is only as we assume the fact of the 
New Testament revelation that we come to believe in the 
typology of the Old Testament. We believe that such and 
such institutions or features of the Mosaic economy typify 
something corresponding in the Christian economy, simply 
because we already regard Christianity as a divine revelation, 
and therefore believe the Christian Scriptures when they affirm 
the typical character of certain things. The types and typical 
prophecies can at the best serve an apolegetic purpose only by 
confirming what is already regarded as established. 

But when we come to consider the other two classes of 
prophecies, the case is different. If future events have been 
minutely foretold hundreds or even thousands of years before 
they took place, then such a fact seems to be a demonstration 
of divine inspiration such as cannot be gainsaid. No one but 
God can surely predict the future. Men may sometimes 
shrewdly conjecture, from what is and has been, what is about 



244 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

to be. Where a known series of causes is in operation, one 
can to some extent anticipate future developments. As an as- 
tronomer can foretell eclipses, assuming the continuance of 
astronomic forces, so an acute observer of social and political 
life, in so far as he perceives the forces that are operating 
among men, may make forecasts concerning the future which 
may often have almost the appearance of supernatural knowl- 
edge. There are also instances of clairvoyance — a faculty quite 
unlike the reflective judgment just spoken of — by which some 
persons appear to be able to foresee, by a sort of direct vision, 
things that are yet future and quite beyond the apprehension 
of others. 1 But anything like an accurate and detailed por- 
traiture of historical events and personages given centuries be- 
fore their appearance would universally be regarded as beyond 
the power of man, and, if correct, would be held by all to be 
a supernatural feat. Accordingly, the prophecies of Scripture 
are by many regarded as a more effective weapon than miracles 
to use against unbelief. And undoubtedly they would be such, 
were they really so minute and accurate a history of the future 
as they are sometimes represented. A miracle is an event the 
evidence of which grows weaker according to the distance of 
time and the number of witnesses through whom the report of 
it comes. A prophecy is a standing miracle, whose voice grows 
more distinct and expressive with the lapse of time. It proves 
nothing at the time of its utterance, but its fulfilment stamps it 
as divine. 

But when we come to examine the Hebrew prophecies, we 
find that the argument is not so clear and cogent as might seem 
desirable, and as has often been asserted. If many prophecies 
of future events appear to have been wonderfully fulfilled, many 
others, it may be objected, have not been fulfilled at all. One 
man, 2 speaking of the Messianic prophecies, uses this strong 
language : " We sometimes hear preachers cry out, * Let one 
show us a single prophecy not fulfilled, and we will descend 
from this pulpit.' I should be tempted to say to them, ' I will 
mount up into your place, if you will show me a single pre- 



1 Eor illustrations see G. C. Horst, 

2 Pecaut, Le Christ et la Conscience, p. 42. 



THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 245 

diction accomplished.' " And Kuenen, in a book 1 replete with 
learning, elaborately argues that the larger part of the Jewish 
prophecies were never fulfilled, and that those which seem to 
have been fulfilled exhibit no marks of supernatural inspiration. 
The fact that such a position can be taken and maintained with 
ability and plausibility, shows that at the best the argument 
from prophecy cannot be relied on as irresistible. 

What shall we say then ? If by means of the prophecies we 
cannot convince the skeptic ; if even professed Christians (like 
Kuenen) find the argument fallacious, shall we drop it alto- 
gether ? And! since, nevertheless, the Hebrew prophets did utter 
manifold predictions concerning the course of future events, and 
professed to speak under the inspiration of Jehovah, shall we 
even have to conclude that the non-fulfilment of their prophe- 
cies becomes a proof not only that they were not inspired, but 
that they were arrant deceivers ? For in the most authoritative 
declaration respecting prophets and their credentials (Deut. xviii. 
22) we are told, " When a prophet speaketh in the name of the 
Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing 
which the Lord hath not spoken : the prophet hath spoken it 
presumptuously ; thou shalt not be afraid of him." 

These apparent drawbacks in the argument from prophecy 
are, when the matter is rightly considered, transformed into 
confirmations of the genuineness of prophecy. Minute exact- 
ness in foretelling the future ought not to be looked for in the 
Old Testament prophecies. For — 

a. The direct and main work of the prophets was preaching, 
not prediction. This is a truth which has become more and 
more recognized by men of all shades of theological belief. 2 

1 The Prophets and Prophecy in Israel. 

2 See, e. g., G. F. Oehler, Theologie des alten Testaments (also in English, 
Theology of the Old Testament), § 213; Rielim, Messianic Prophecy, p. 26; 
P. Fairbairn, Prophecy, pp. 6 sq. ; Davison, Discourses on Prophecy, p. 42 ; 
Ewald, Die Propheten des alten Bundes, vol. i. p. 25 ; Hitzig, Biblische The- 
ologie, § 22 ; Orelli, Die alttestamentliche Weissagung, p. 10 ; W. R. Smith, 
The Prophets of Israel, p. 82 ; Ladd, Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 
139 ; Briggs, Messianic Prophecy, § 14 ; R. P. Smith, Prophecy a Preparation 
for Christ, Lect. L; H. Schultz, Alttestamentliche Theologie, vol. i. p. 171; 
Kiiper, Das Prophetenthum des alten Bundes, p. 32 ; Kleinert, Art. Prophet, 



246 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

The office of the prophets was to enforce the commands of the 
law, to warn the perverse, to comfort the afflicted, and in gen- 
eral to awaken the national conscience. They dwelt on the 
power, omnipresence, and holiness of Jehovah. They empha- 
sized the doctrine of his intimate relation to his people. They 
aimed to keep before their hearers the obligations which, as a 
nation and as individuals, they owed to Jehovah. In short, 
they were preachers of righteousness, — not, however, as an ab- 
stract duty evolved out of their consciousness, but as a duty to 
an ever present personal God. The larger part of the prophecies 
is of this purely ethical sort, without any predictive element. 
But where they introduce intimations concerning the future, 
it is still for the purpose of warning or of encouragement. 
Threats of national or individual punishment were uttered, 
but not for the purpose of serving to later generations as a 
monument of their powers of vaticination ; they were uttered 
for the purpose of producing an immediate wholesome moral im- 
pression. Even the denunciation of judgment on the surround- 
ing heathen nations was for the same purpose. The idolatries 
and vices of those nations were pictured, and the necessary pun- 
ishment was set forth ; but all this, in order to impress on the 
Jews the superiority of Jehovah to the false gods of the 
heathen, and the iniquity and danger of yielding, as they were 
only too ready to yield, to the seductive influences of their 
neighbors. When, on the contrary, they foretold a future 
period of prosperity and peace, this was still designed to have 
a present effect, namely, to impress on the people the truth of 
the Divine guardianship, and the certainty that sooner or later 
faith in Jehovah and patient waiting for him would be re- 
warded. The Messianic prophecies occur almost uniformly in 
immediate connection with appeals or reproaches concerning 
the national sins, or else as a consolation to the people when 
suffering under distress and captivity. 1 The office of the 
prophet is expressly declared to be that of conveying to the 

in Riehm's Handworterbuch des biblischen Alterthums ; Tholuck, Die Propheten 
und ihre Weissagungen, § 5. 

1 Cf. Isa. viii. 16-ix. 7, x. 24-xi. 16, li. 17-liii. 12 ; Jer. iii. 1-18 ; Ezek. 
xxxvi. 16-36 ; Joel ii. 15-32 ; Amos ix. 7-15 ; Micali iii. 1-iv. 5, etc. 



THE RELATION OE CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 247 

people Jehovah's messages of instruction and warning. 1 The 
accounts, in the historical books, of the appearance and inter- 
vention of prophets is to the same effect. They came, not for 
the purpose of predicting some distant future event, but for the 
purpose of producing a present effect on the conduct of rulers 
or people. 2 They were raised up in order to check the ten- 
dency to formalism, and to keep alive the sense of the pres- 
ence of the living God. 

Now for the accomplishment of this purpose minute predic- 
tions of what was to take place centuries after their time would 
manifestly have been of no use. It being impossible to verify 
the correctness of the predictions till long after the prophet and 
all those to whom he was sent were dead, the utterance of them 
would have been to the prophet's contemporaries no proof of 
his divine commission. If they believed the predictions, it must 
have been for other reasons than the evidence contained in the 
predictions themselves. 

Nevertheless the prophets did utter predictions. And we live 
at a time when it can for the most part be determined whether 
the predictions have been fulfilled or not. But in examining the 
question, we are to keep in mind what the main and direct 
mission of the prophets was. We must remember that their 
prophecies had, before all things else, a moral and religious end. 
We must also consider the oriental style in which the prophecies 
are clothed, and not press figurative and graphic language, as if 
the substantial truth of the prophetic utterance depended on an 
exact and literal fulfilment of such incidental features of the 
description. 3 Take such a prophecy as that of Joel ii. 28-32. 
It is quoted by Peter (Acts ii. 14-21) as being fulfilled on the 
day of Pentecost. Nor does Peter hesitate to include in the 
quotation all that Joel has to say about the wonders in heaven, 
and signs on the earth, — blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke, 
the sun darkened, and the moon turned into blood ; although 

1 Cf. Jer. vii. 25, 26, xxv. 4-7, xxix. 19, xxxv. 15 ; Ezek. ii. 3-5 ; Dan. 
ix. 6 ; Mic. iii. 8 ; Zech. vii. 12. 

2 See Judg. iv. 4 sqq., vi. 7-10 ; 2 Sam. vii. 2 sqq., xii. 1-15, xxiv. 11-14, 
and notably the history of Elijah and Elisha. 

8 Vide Tholuck, Die Projiheten, etc., p. 134. 



248 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

there is not the slightest intimation that any of these signs had 
come to pass. The rushing mighty wind and the cloven tongues 
of fire certainly correspond very imperfectly to the prophet's 
description. It is manifest that Peter regarded these signs as 
figuratively meant, and laid all the stress on the essential thing, 
— the outpouring of the Spirit. Or, if he understood that the 
prophecy was to be fulfilled also in this more external way, he 
must have regarded the fulfilment as still to come. So when 
the prophets portray the destruction of heathen cities, specifying 
the kinds of birds and beasts that shall eventually dwell in 
their ruins, 1 the object is to picture, in this graphic way, the 
thoroughness of the destruction ; and it would be a petty tri- 
umph of the skeptic to be able to show that in some of these 
details, which are only the dress of the description, the event 
has failed to correspond exactly to the prediction. Accordingly 
even in instances in which the prophecy seems to have been 
remarkably fulfilled in just these very non-essential particulars, 
we cannot regard this outward correspondence as the vital thing. 
When, for example, Christ's riding into Jerusalem on an ass 
is declared to be the fulfilment of Zech. ix. 9, 2 if one looks 
merely on this circumstance, one misses the real substance of 
the prophecy. It is manifest that Zechariah, in this specification 
of the animal on which the Messianic King would ride, meant 
to indicate the 'peaceful character of his reign. He is therefore 
pictured as riding on an ass, the beast used in the peaceful pur- 
suits of a nation, whereas the horse was then associated with 
war ; and accordingly in the next verse (ix. 10) we read, " I 
will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jeru- 
salem, and the battle bow shall be cut off; and he shall speak 
peace unto the nations." Similarly Micah (v. 2-10) and Isaiah 
(ix. 1-7) portray the Messiah as the Prince of Peace, whose 
reign is to be signalized by the destruction of warlike weapons, 
chariots and horses, fortified cities and strongholds. Now sup- 
pose that at the time of Christ asses had ceased to be used, and 
horses had taken their place as the beasts of burden and of 
labor. Suppose then that Jesus had ridden into Jerusalem on 

1 E.g., Isa xxxiv. 11-16; Zeph. ii. 14. 

2 See Matt. xxi. 4, 5 ; John xii. 14, 15. 



THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 249 

a horse ; would the prophecy for that reason have been unful- 
filled ? Or even if he had not ridden in at all, the essence of 
the prophecy would still none the less have been accomplished. 
We cannot limit the fulfilment to that one occasion even. The 
whole ministry of Christ was a fulfilment of the prophecy ; and 
the Evangelist merely calls attention to this one occasion on 
which not merely the prediction in its more vital features, but 
even the pictorial clothing of it, had been fulfilled. 

But, it may be said, just these prophecies which most directly, 
and not in a merely typical sense, foretell the coming of a 
Messiah contain elements which make it certain that the 
prophets themselves could not have had such a person in mind 
as Jesus of Nazareth was. The prophets evidently regarded 
him as one who was to deliver the Jews from the hostile As- 
syrians (Mic. v. 5), and to conquer the Philistines, Edomites, 
Moabites, and Ammonites (Isa. xi. 14). He was expected to 
sit on the throne of David and restore the glory of the Davidic 
reign (Isa. ix. 7; Jer. xxiii. 5, xxx. 9, xxxiii. 15, 17 ; Ezek. xxxiv. 
23, 24 ; Hos. iii. 5 ; Amos ix. 11). It was assumed that Jerusalem 
and the temple would be the centre of the Messianic king- 
dom, and that the Mosaic law, with its ritual, would be perpet- 
ually observed (Jer. xxxiii. 18-22; Isa. ii. 2-4, lxvi. 20-23; 
Zech. xiv. 16-21). In short, the prophets, even in their loftiest 
anticipations of the Messianic period, seem to have been unable 
to divest themselves of their national, local, and religious asso- 
ciations, and fail to give an accurate description of him who 
professed to fulfil those prophecies. 

Now, one might say that all this too belonged to the mere 
drapery of the prophetic delineation ; that the Messianic reign 
was really not conceived by the prophets as a mere continua- 
tion, on a grander scale, of the Jewish monarchy and law. And 
other passages in the same prophets may be referred to as 
evidence that they had a more correct conception of what the 
real Messiah was to be and to do. Thus Jeremiah (iii. 16) 
represents it as a feature of the Messianic time that the ark of 
the covenant would be forgotten, and (xxxi. 31-34) that the 
old covenant would be replaced by a new and more spiritual 
one. Still the fact is that the Messianic prophecies have pre- 



248 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

there is not the slightest intimation that any of these signs had 
come to pass. The rushing mighty wind and the cloven tongues 
of fire certainly correspond very imperfectly to the prophet's 
description. It is manifest that Peter regarded these signs as 
figuratively meant, and laid all the stress on the essential thing, 
— the outpouring of the Spirit. Or, if he understood that the 
prophecy was to be fulfilled also in this more external way, he 
must have regarded the fulfilment as still to come. So when 
the prophets portray the destruction of heathen cities, specifying 
the kinds of birds and beasts that shall eventually dwell in 
their ruins, 1 the object is to picture, in this graphic way, the 
thoroughness of the destruction ; and it would be a petty tri- 
umph of the skeptic to be able to show that in some of these 
details, which are only the dress of the description, the event 
has failed to correspond exactly to the prediction. Accordingly 
even in instances in which the prophecy seems to have been 
remarkably fulfilled in just these very non-essential particulars, 
we cannot regard this outward correspondence as the vital thing. 
When, for example, Christ's riding into Jerusalem on an ass 
is declared to be the fulfilment of Zech. ix. 9, 2 if one looks 
merely on this circumstance, one misses the real substance of 
the prophecy. It is manifest that Zechariah, in this specification 
of the animal on which the Messianic King would ride, meant 
to indicate the peaceful character of his reign. He is therefore 
pictured as riding on an ass, the beast used in the peaceful pur- 
suits of a nation, whereas the horse was then associated with 
war ; and accordingly in the next verse (ix. 10) we read, " I 
will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jeru- 
salem, and the battle bow shall be cut off; and he shall speak 
peace unto the nations." Similarly Micah (v. 2-10) and Isaiah 
(ix. 1-7) portray the Messiah as the Prince of Peace, whose 
reign is to be signalized by the destruction of warlike weapons, 
chariots and horses, fortified cities and strongholds. Now sup- 
pose that at the time of Christ asses had ceased to be used, and 
horses had taken their place as the beasts of burden and of 
labor. Suppose then that Jesus had ridden into Jerusalem on 

1 E.g., Isa xxxiv. 11-16; Zeph. ii. 14. 

2 See Matt. xxi. 4, 5 ; John xii. 14, 15. 



THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 249 

a horse ; would the prophecy for that reason have been unful- 
filled ? Or even if he had not ridden in at all, the essence of 
the prophecy would still none the less have been accomplished. 
We cannot limit the fulfilment to that one occasion even. The 
whole ministry of Christ was a fulfilment of the prophecy ; and 
the Evangelist merely calls attention to this one occasion on 
which not merely the prediction in its more vital features, but 
even the pictorial clothing of it, had been fulfilled. 

But, it may be said, just these prophecies which most directly, 
and not in a merely typical sense, foretell the coming of a 
Messiah contain elements which make it certain that the 
prophets themselves could not have had such a person in mind 
as Jesus of Nazareth was. The prophets evidently regarded 
him as one who was to deliver the Jews from the hostile As- 
syrians (Mic. v. 5), and to conquer the Philistines, Edomites, 
Moabites, and Ammonites (Isa. xi. 14). He was expected to 
sit on the throne of David and restore the glory of the Davidic 
reign (Isa. ix. 7 ; Jer. xxiii. 5, xxx. 9, xxxiii. 15, 17 ; Ezek. xxxiv. 
23, 24 ; Hos. iii. 5 ; Amos ix. 11). It was assumed that Jerusalem 
and the temple would be the centre of the Messianic king- 
dom, and that the Mosaic law, with its ritual, would be perpet- 
ually observed (Jer. xxxiii. 18-22 ; Isa. ii. 2-4, lxvi. 20-23 ; 
Zech. xiv. 16-21). In short, the prophets, even in their loftiest 
anticipations of the Messianic period, seem to have been unable 
to divest themselves of their national, local, and religious asso- 
ciations, and fail to give an accurate description of him who 
professed to fulfil those prophecies. 

Now, one might say that all this too belonged to the mere 
drapery of the prophetic delineation ; that the Messianic reign 
was really not conceived by the prophets as a mere continua- 
tion, on a grander scale, of the Jewish monarchy and law. And 
other passages in the same prophets may be referred to as 
evidence that they had a more correct conception of what the 
real Messiah was to be and to do. Thus Jeremiah (iii. 16) 
represents it as a feature of the Messianic time that the ark of 
the covenant would be forgotten, and (xxxi. 31-34) that the 
old covenant would be replaced by a new and more spiritual 
one. Still the fact is that the Messianic prophecies have pre- 



252 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

was to come from the house of David. 1 And the particularity of 
many of Daniel's prophecies is thought to be one reason for re- 
garding them as written after the event. Now whatever judg- 
ment one may have on these points, it is very certain that the 
more curiously exact and detailed a prophecy should be, as 
compared with the event predicted, the more strongly would 
every one be tempted to conjecture that the prophecy, in whole 
or in part, had been composed after the alleged fulfilment. 
Suppose a prophecy should be produced, foretelling all the 
details of Jesus' life, — the date and circumstances of his birth, 
the names of his parents, his going to the temple at the age of 
twelve, his baptism in the Jordan, his temptation, the number 
and names of his twelve apostles, the course and order of his 
journeys, his miracles, his place of abode, etc., — would not 
every one be instinctively inclined to doubt its genuineness ? 
Why ? Not because it is impossible for God to inspire a man to 
write such a prophecy, but because it would be out of harmony 
with the divine method and wisdom to do such a thing. Since 
the prophet's vocation is an ethical one, it would be inconsistent 
with its serious and practical character for him to tickle the cu- 
riosity of his hearers with such a multitude of minute outward 
details respecting the future. It is, in great part, the presence 
of such details in the Sibylline Oracles which has led to the 
assurance that they are largely spurious. 2 Such predictions can 

1 Schultz, Alttestamentliche Theologie, vol. ii. p. 250. 

2 The Eighth. Book of these Oracles (Eriedlieb's edition) gives, among other 
things, a prophecy of the incarnation of the Son of God, and of his works. 
Such descriptions are found as the following : — 

" By his word he will still the winds, and quiet the hillows 
When they are raging, and walk on their surface, peaceful and trustful. 
With five loaves and a fish from the Lake of Gennesaret's waters 
He will appease the hunger of five thousand men in the desert ; 
And when he takes up all of the fragments that are left over, 
He will fill twelve baskets therewith, a hope of the nations, (vers. 223-278.) 



And at last to the faithless and godless he will be delivered, 
Who with unhallowed hands will blows inflict on the Godhead, 
And from polluted mouths will cast on him poisonous spittle. 
But he will simply yield his sacred back to the scourges, 
And will be silent when smitten, in order that none may discover 
Who and whence he is, that he may speak to the dead ones. 



THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 253 

be of no use to the prophet's contemporaries, who have no means 
of verifying the accuracy of the predictions, and would serve to 
dissipate, rather than intensify, any moral impression that he 
might be aiming to produce. 

But would not such minuteness in the prophecy be of great 
value to those who live when or after the prophecy is fulfilled ? 
Hardly ; for such preternatural foreseeing of the accidental 
details of future history would resemble rather the mysterious 
phenomena of clairvoyance than the product of a divine in- 
spiration, even if proved to be genuine. It would be exposed to 
the suspicion, however, of not being genuine, for the very reason 
that it is intrinsically unlikely that God would supernaturally 
communicate such details. But there is another objection. 

c. Such minuteness of prediction would interfere with the free 
and natural course of things. It would tempt some to try to 
fulfil it, and tempt others to try to frustrate it. As Nitzsch l 
says, such predictions must be " rare and moderate, in order not 
to destroy all human relation to history." It is sometimes said 
that predictions often fulfil themselves ; that is, men set them- 
selves to the work of doing something for the very purpose of 
making a known prediction come true. If the terms of the 
prediction are very specific and unambiguous, and if one has 
any special reason for desiring to have it come to pass, one can 
often gain this end by directly working to bring about the 
accomplishment of the thing predicted. Or the opposite may 
be the case. The Bible furnishes some illustrations of this. 
When Ahijah met Jeroboam and predicted that he would be- 
come king of Israel (1 Kings xi. 29-35), while he may not have 

And he will wear a crown of thorns, . . . (vers. 287-294.) 
But he will spread out his hands, and the whole world's breadth he will measure. 
Gall they gave him to eat, and vinegar when he was thirsty. 
Such unkindness shall bring upon them merited vengeance. 
And the veil of the temple was rent in twain, and at midday 
Three hours long will night prevail with terrible darkness." (vers. 302-306.) 
The translation we have given is as close as adherence to the meter would 
allow Only in one particular is the description made more minute than in the 
original Greek: instead of "Lake of Geunesaret's waters" it reads simply 
" water of the lake." 

1 System der christlichen Lehre, § 35. 



254 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

suggested an altogether new thought to Jeroboam's mind, yet 
it is natural to assume that the encouragement afforded by the 
prophecy must have strengthened, if it did not produce, Jero- 
boam's resolution to make the prediction good, — just as Mac- 
beth was fired by what the witches foretold him to bring about 
the fulfilment of his predicted elevation. On the other hand, 
Solomon tried to frustrate Ahijah's prophecy by seeking to put 
Jeroboam to death. So Herod, after he had learned that it had 
been prophesied that the Messiah should be born in Bethlehem, 
attempted to frustrate the prophecy by killing all the children 
in the place. On the other hand, the fact of Messianic prophe- 
cies in general, although they are wanting in details of time and 
place and circumstance, undoubtedly furnished a stimulus to 
Theudas and Bar-cochebas, and the other pretended Messiahs. 
Unless all prophecies are to be as vague and ambiguous as the 
Delphic oracles often were, it could hardly be otherwise than 
that there should be efforts made to fulfil them of set purpose. 
But if they were all perfectly unambiguous and specific, it is 
manifest that they would tend to interfere with the natural 
operation of motives. The prophecies would become something 
else than prophecies ; they would become a power directly 
operating to produce the result predicted. Prophets would be, 
to a great extent, what the more superstitious among the Jews, 
as well as other peoples, regarded them as being, namely, the 
efficient causes of the events foretold by them. This was evi- 
dently Ahab's conception of a prophet's power, when he entreated 
Micaiah to utter a favorable prophecy respecting his proposed 
expedition against Bamoth-gilead (1 Kings xxii. 13), and when, 
after the three years' drought predicted by Elijah, he met the 
prophet, and said, " Is it thou, thou troubler of Israel ? " 
(1 Kings xviii. 17). 

d. But we have not only these reasons for not expecting in 
prophecies a detailed and exact forecasting of future events. It 
being the prophet's function to preach to his own contemporaries, 
his language, and the whole cast of his address, need to be 
intelligible to his hearers. But this would not be the case, if he 
dealt with themes entirely unfamiliar to them, and if his pic- 
ture of the future had a coloring which they could not under- 



THE RELATION OE CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 255 

stand. Of what use could it have been to the Jews of Isaiah's 
time to be told in detail about the history of the Eoman Empire, 
a power as yet hardly in its infancy ? Why should the prophet 
have been inspired to specify how many years would elapse 
before the Messiah would be born, and to tell particularly under 
what kind of government the Jews then would be ? Even if 
he could himself have had a complete vision of that future, all 
strange to him in its outward features, it would have been 
almost impossible for him to make the vision mean anything 
to his hearers. It was, we may say, practically necessary that 
the promises of Messianic help should wear the color of the 
prophet's own time. This may involve an inaccuracy in outward 
circumstance, but that is nothing else than what we should 
look for, so long as we regard the prophet's direct aim to have 
been to produce a religious impression on those around him. 
The Jews at that time could not have been made to apprehend 
the idea of a purely spiritual kingdom. Surrounded as they 
were by mighty heathen nations by which they were in immi- 
nent danger of being overpowered, their hope of a great King 
able to give them security and salvation could not well have 
been dissociated from protection against these threatening 
powers. Nor do we need to suppose that the prophets them- 
selves were wholly lifted above these associations. It is there- 
fore quite what might be expected when the earlier prophets, 
especially Isaiah and his contemporaries, seem to connect the 
Messianic deliverance with the Assyrian invasions, while the 
following ones are more occupied with the Babylonian and 
Medo-Persian empires, and only the latest make mention of 
Greece, 1 and none of them distinctly of Rome. The prophetic 

1 The references to Greece (Javan), however, occur mostly in books the 
date of which is disputed. They are found in Joel iii. 6 ; Dan. viii. 21, x. 20, 
xi. 2; Ezek. xxvii. 13, 19 (where the second is supposed to be an Arabian 
country, not Greece) ; Isa. lxvi. 19, and Zech. ix. 13. Only the passages in 
Daniel and Zechariah speak of Greece as a formidable military power. Our 
general purpose does not require a discussion of the critical questions here 
involved. As to Isa. xl.-lxvi., whatever one's judgment may be, there can 
be no question that the weightiest argument — one may say almost the only 
weighty argument — for the exilic date is the obvious fact that the writer all 
through the book writes as if the captivity were present, not future. 



256 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

descriptions of the future bear the impress of the time in which 
they are written. As Fairbairn 1 well expresses it, " the prophets 
necessarily thought and spoke of the future under the condi- 
tions of their own historical position ; so that it was not the 
image of the future which threw itself back upon the past, 
but rather the image of the past which threw itself forward 
into the future, — the things which were, and had been, gave 
their form to the things which were yet to be." 

The foregoing considerations, while they imply that there are 
in the prophecies what may be called inaccuracies, yet indicate 
that the argument from prophecy is for that very reason of 
peculiar weight. There is so much prediction of a Messianic 
kingdom, and such a wonderful anticipation of many of its 
features, that the theory of supernatural illumination is the only 
satisfactory one ; while yet the prophetic conception remains 
on that plane on which alone it could have been instructive 
and helpful to the prophet's own contemporaries. The signifi- 
cance of the Messianic prophecies in particular does not consist 
so much in the exact correspondence of any one of them with 
the details of the historic fulfilment, as in the very fact of the 
existence of so great a variety of Messianic prophecies, differ- 
ing sometimes almost irreconcilably from one another, yet 
each suggesting or directly foretelling some one or more of 
the characteristics of the actual Messiah and his work. It 
is this convergence of so many different prophecies towards 
Christ and the Christian Church which constitutes the real 
strength of the argument from prophecy. The so-called Prot- 
evangelium (Gen. iii. 15) would, by itself, amount to very little as 
an evidence of a prophetic anticipation of Jesus Christ. The same 
may be said of Jacob's oracle (Gen. xlix. 10) respecting Judah, 
and of Balaam's vision (Xum. xxiv. 17) of the star and the 
sceptre, and indeed of any one of the later more specific predic- 
tions that are found in the Old Testament. But it is just be- 
cause there runs all through the Hebrew history this remarkable 
anticipation, growing more and more definite and decided with 
the lapse of time, assuming many forms and pictured in most di- 
verse ways, and because these various prophecies are so remark- 

1 Prophecy, p. 155. 



THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 257 

ably fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, that one becomes impressed 
with the conviction that a more than human intelligence gov- 
erned the utterances of the prophets when they predicted the 
Messianic kingdom. The more probable it can be made to ap- 
pear that the prophets themselves did not expect just such a 
Messiah as Jesus proved to be, the more indubitable does it be- 
come that the hand of Jehovah was upon them, and that they 
were inspired to utter words which foreshadowed more than 
the prophets were conscious of meaning. When one and the 
same person is seen to unite in himself, and to fulfil, the diverse 
prophecies which have pictured the expected Messiah now as 
Prophet, 1 now as King, 2 now as Priest, 3 now as a sufferer 4 in 

1 Deut. xviii. 15, 18 ; Isa. xlii. 1-7, xlix. 1-6, lii. 13-liii. 12. 

2 Isa. ix. 1-7, xi. 1-9 ; Micah v. 1-5 ; Zech. ix. 9, etc. 
8 Ps. ex. 4 ; Zech. iii. 8, vi. 13. 

4 Zech. xii. 10, xiii. 7 ; Dan. ix. 26 ; Isa. liii. As to this last-mentioned 
chapter, it is Messianic, whatever theory one may adopt as to its primary 
meaning. Among the various interpretations the most groundless is that 
which makes the " servant " some king, as Hezekiah, Uzziah, or Josiah. There 
is scarcely anything to favor the hypothesis. But little more plausible is the 
supposition that the passage refers to some individual prophet, perhaps Jere- 
miah, who has undergone peculiar persecution. It is almost grotesque to think 
of any ordinary prophet described as sustaining such a unique relation to the 
people. There is nothing whatever to suggest it ; the " servant of Jehovah " 
in this section (xl.-lxvi.) is nowhere distinctly applied to an individual prophet. 
This fact bears equally against the view that the " servant " is here collec- 
tively used of the prophets in general. The term is doubtless used collec- 
tively for the most part, but is applied not to the prophets, but to the people as 
a whole (xli. 8, xlii. 19, xliii. 10, xliv. 1, 21, etc.). Sometimes, however, the 
servant is distinguished from the people (as in xlii. 1-7, xlix. 1-6, 1. 10). 
The exegetical- question is, whether in this latter case the servant is conceived 
of as an individual, or as the pious part of the people. Apparently it must be 
one or the other. The prevalent collective sense in other cases favors assum- 
ing a collective sense in these cases ; but this is not decisive. Where the 
singular number is used continuously, and the general impression produced is 
that of an individual rather than of a collection — as in xlix. 1-6, and es- 
pecially in lii. 13-liii. 12 — there is not the slightest exegetical difficulty in sup- 
posing that the prophet really had an individual in mind. If he confessedly 
uses the term now in a comprehensive, and now in a restricted, sense, — so 
restricted that in xlix, 6 it is represented as the mission of the " servant " 
to " raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel," as 
well as to be "a light to the Gentiles," — there is no exegetical objection to 

17 



258 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

the power of his enemies, now as a victorious and invincible 
warrior; — when one comes to see this, then the conviction be- 
comes irresistible that no mere presentiment, no magical arts, 
no shrewd prognostications, and no cunning deceit could have 
so constructed the prophecy and so brought about the ful- 
filment. 

This is a line of argument which will of course not be strin- 
gent to one who recognizes in Christ himself no divine illumi- 
nation and authority. Such a one may speciously urge that the 
Messianic anticipations of the Jewish prophets have failed of 
fulfilment in respect to their predominant feature, namely, the 
kingly character of the Messiah. Jesus, it may be said, was 

our supposing that the restriction goes so far as to limit the term sometimes 
to an individual, who in a unique manner realizes the divine ideal of a servant. 
And in chap. liii. everything favors this hypothesis. So sharply is the servant 
individualized and contrasted with the people in general, that some (<?. g., 
Hitzig, following the later Rabbins) conceive verses 2-10 to be the language 
of the heathen amongst whom the Jews were dispersed, — a view, however, so 
groundless that it hardly needs refutation. Now it is a simple rhetorical 
principle that, if the singular noun or pronoun is used collectively, the con- 
text must make this fact evident. In xli. 8-14, e. g. y no one can doubt that 
the people as a whole are meant, even apart from the phrase " men of Israel" 
in verse 14. But in lii. 13 — liii. the case is reversed. We there have not 
merely the singular number uniformly used ; but the marks of individuality 
are so various and pointed that it becomes difficult to adjust the section to the 
theory of a collective signification. E. g., when the servant is called " a man 
of sorrows," one who " opened not his mouth," was "cut off from the land 
of the living," etc., it requires a straining of " the exegetical conscience " 
to understand the prophet as meaning the whole people, or even a collection 
of persons. The presumption here is that a single person is in the prophet's 
mind, and that this individual is the expected Messiah. This view, favored 
by the internal evidence, and adopted by the earlier Jews and the great 
majority of Christian interpreters, is not likely to be abandoned. It is sur- 
prising that Professor Ladd should say that " no other answer has greater dif- 
ficulties than the one which makes the passage . . . directly and solely 
Messianic " {Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 55). Professor Ladd strongly asserts 
indeed the Messianic character of the passage, but regards it as only typically 
Messianic. This is of course possibly correct ; but few will be likely to come 
to that conclusion on account of such a subtle exegesis of Luke xxii. 37 as he 
adopts (p. 54), following Meyer, against nearly everybody else. See on this 
subject, Urwick, The Servant of Jehovah, and V. E. Oehler, Her Knecht 
Jehova's. 



THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 259 

anything but a king. He expressly refused to be made a king. 
He was simply a wise and good man who tried to get men to 
follow his precepts. With such objectors we are not disposed 
to contend. The true force of the argument from prophecy can 
be felt only by one who recognizes in Jesus something higher 
than a distinguished moralist or philosopher ; who sees in him 
the realization of the highest ideal of true Kingship ; who ac- 
knowledges him to be the Head of the Kingdom of God, the 
Lord to whom the members of the community of believers 
owe homage and allegiance. He who sees in him the real 
Anointed of God has no difficulty in seeing how he fulfils 
the types and predictions of the Old Testament ; Christ is 
rather the one fact that gives unity and consistency and signifi- 
cance to what otherwise is obscure and confused. This faith in 
Christ, it is true, is not ordinarily the product of a study of the 
prophecies. The evidences of Christianity which are most con- 
vincing are doubtless those which are found in the history and 
inherent character of Christianity itself. But provided the 
faith exists, it receives an additional support, when it appre- 
hends the relation of Christ to the law and prophecies of the 
Old Covenant, and sees in him the focus towards which the 
various and seemingly scattered rays of previous revelations 
all converged. 

3. Another question is : How far do Christ and his apostles 
authenticate the miracles of the Old Testament ? Even though 
on account of their testimony we believe that Moses and the 
prophets received supernatural revelations, does this require us 
to give full credence to every story of the Old Testament which 
reports the occurrence of a miracle ? 

The miracles of the Old Testament, as compared with those 
of the New, have always been the first to receive the assaults of 
skeptics. Being more remote from us, they are not so directly 
attested, and in many cases they seem to have less intrinsic 
probability and less apparent justification. Some of them are 
favorite butts of ridicule. Is there reason for any distinction 
between these and the Christian miracles ? 

In general, it must be obvious that no radical distinction can 
be drawn between the two classes. If miracles are needed as 



260 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

vouchers for the genuineness of any special revelation of the 
divine purpose and character, then they were needed when a 
revelation was made through Abraham, Moses, and the prophets, 
as well as when one was made through Christ and the apostles. 
In so far, therefore, as Jesus recognized the Old Testament dis- 
pensation as of divine origin, he implicitly recognized the mira- 
cles which served to attest this origin. 

But if even with regard to the New Testament miracles we 
adopt certain criteria of genuineness, assuming at least the pos- 
sibility that apocryphal stories may have got entrance into the 
canonical books, then of course we may equally, or even to a 
greater degree, exercise the same right of discrimination with 
regard to the Old Testament. But the same caution in exercis- 
ing the right is needed in the latter case as in the former. The 
necessity and the fact of miracles as accompaniments of the 
divine revelation being once assumed, it is not an easy matter 
to draw the line between those which shall be acknowledged as 
fit and appropriate, and those which shall be discarded as un- 
worthy of God, and as legendary. If a reported miracle were 
palpably at war with the known character of God, that would 
be sufficient reason for questioning the authenticity of the story. 
But in applying this criterion different persons will come to dif- 
ferent conclusions. For example, to some the accounts of the de- 
struction of the Egyptian first-born, or of the messengers sent to 
Elijah (2 Kings i. 9-12), will seem to be inconsistent with the 
character of a God who is represented, even in the Old Testa- 
ment, as a God of infinite compassion and forbearance (Ex. 
xxxiv. 6; Jonah iv. 2, etc.); whereas others, Who lay more 
stress on the attribute of righteousness in God, and on the need 
of its being made impressively manifest, will find no serious 
difficulty in such narratives. Or again, some may be inclined to 
object to some miracles as trivial, undignified, or purposeless, as 
for example, the speaking of Balaam's ass (Num. xxii. 28), the 
resurrection of the man who was buried in the tomb of Elisha 
(2 Kings xiii. 21), the story of Samson's exploits, or of Jonah's 
preservation ; while others are not scandalized by such things, 
and are able to discern a meaning worthy of God in them. 1 

1 Christlieb (Moderne Zweifel am christlichen Glauben, pp. 367-391) de- 



THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 261 

In many cases it may be a question whether the event re- 
corded is, strictly speaking, a miracle at all. The Old Testa- 
ment writers are so much accustomed to ascribe all events, 
especially striking and important ones, directly to divine agency, 
that it is not necessary to call everything miraculous that at first 
glance may seem to be described as such. For example, when it 
is said (Josh. x. 11) that Jehovah cast down great stones from 
heaven upon the Gibeonites, the hail-storm which is reported 
need not be regarded as a miracle. And likewise in the numer- 
ous instances in which God is said to have spoken to individuals, 
or to have moved them to do this or that, it would be a mis- 
conception of the Biblical style and meaning to assume in all 
such cases a strictly supernatural intervention. 

But the question immediately before us is, How far the New 
Testament sanctions the miracles reported in the Old? We 
should not expect a particular and detailed reference to each 
separate miraculous event. The Old Testament history is re- 
ferred to in general as one under especial divine direction, and 
certain of the recorded miracles are alluded to as facts. The fol- 
lowing are thus referred to : Jonah's preservation (Matt. xii. 40), 
the deluge (Matt. xxiv. 39 ; Luke xvii. 27 ; Heb. xi. 7 ; 1 Pet. 
iii. 20), Jehovah in the burning bush (Mark xii. 26; Luke xx. 
37 ; Acts vii. 30), Elijah and the widow (Luke iv. 25, 26), Elisha's 
healing Naaman (iv. 27), Moses' brazen serpent (John iii. 14), the 
gift of manna (vi. 31, 32, 49). The foregoing are referred to by 
Jesus himself, as reported in the Gospels. In the following books 
we find reference to still others, viz. : the call of Abraham (Acts 
vii. 2, 3, Heb. xi. 8), the deliverance of the Israelites from 
Egypt (Acts vii. 36, xiii. 17 ; Heb. xi. 29), the birth of Isaac 
(Kom. iv. 19-21 ; Heb. xi. 11), the shining of Moses' face 
(2 Cor. iii. 7), the offering of Isaac (Heb. xi. 17-19 ; Jas. ii. 21), 
the destruction of the Egyptian first-born (Heb. xi. 28), the 
fall of Jericho (xi. 30), the demonstrations on Mount Sinai 
(xii. 18-21), Elijah's prophecy of drought (James v. 17), Ba- 
laam's ass speaking (2 Pet. ii. 16). These are only a part of 

votes a section (omitted in the English translation) to a few of the miracles 
that have been especially assailed, viz. those concerning Balaam's ass, Joshua's 
stopping the sun, Elijah's translation, and Jonah in the fish's belly. 



262 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

the miraculous events narrated in the Old Testament, and in 
many of these cases the event is merely alluded to incidentally. 
But this is just what might have been expected. The miracles 
of the Old Testament are endorsed, or vouched for, by the New 
Testament implicitly rather than explicitly. That is, the 
whole Old Testament history and economy being treated as 
under divine direction, the several incidents recorded in the 
Old Testament, whether miraculous or not, are presumptively 
included in this "general endorsement. It would therefore be 
very unreasonable to pronounce the unmentioned miracles less 
credible than the others simply because they are not mentioned 
in the New Testament, while on the other hand the general en- 
dorsement which the New Testament gives to the supernatural 
character of the Mosaic dispensation does not of itself preclude 
the possibility that certain of the narratives of the Old Testa- 
ment may be regarded as more or less inaccurate. 

But the question may be asked, whether even all of the Old 
Testament narratives of miracles which are referred to in the 
New Testament are necessarily for that reason to be regarded 
as authoritatively vouched for. Or, to put the question in 
another form, Does faith in the divine authority of Christ com- 
pel us to hold that the Old Testament miracles which he is re- 
ported to have referred to really occurred as they are described 
in the Old Testament? 

We should be obliged to answer this question with an un- 
qualified affirmative, were it not possible to take a middle 
course between this and a disbelief in Christ's trustworthiness. 
It may be held that, though Christ is to be absolutely trusted, 
yet the evangelical accounts of him are not to be absolutely 
trusted. Accordingly one may entertain the opinion that in 
certain instances in which Jesus is said to have referred to an 
Old Testament miracle as a fact, he has perhaps been misre- 
ported by the historian. Such a conjecture may be without 
any solid foundation ; but it is certainly possible to cherish it, 
and yet retain implicit faith in Christ. 

Or one may hold that Christ, in his references to the stories 
of the Old Testament, had no intention of pronouncing them 
historically true, but used them only as illustrations of the 



THE RELATION OE CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 263 

truths which he himself wished to impress on his hearers ; just 
as the incidents of mythological tales are often referred to by- 
Christian speakers and writers as if they were facts, though 
neither the speaker nor the hearer so regards them. Here, 
too, it may be argued in reply that there is no good reason 
for regarding Jesus as making such a use of the Old Testa- 
ment as the one alleged ; but still it is possible for one to hold 
such a theory without impugning the trustworthiness of Christ 
himself. 

How, then, shall we answer the question ? It can be fully 
answered only by a complete exegetical and critical examination 
of the New Testament records. If such an examination should 
result in showing conclusively that Jesus is inaccurately reported 
when he is said to refer to the miracles of the Old Testament, 
and that the authentic accounts of him show him to have been 
no believer in the genuineness of the recorded miracles, or that 
at least he nowhere plainly avowed or implied a belief in their 
genuineness, then the case is clear : One can hold what views 
he pleases concerning the Old Testament miracles, and still 
remain fully loyal to Jesus Christ. 

But it requires no elaborate investigation to make it clear 
that such a conception of the New Testament records cannot 
be made reasonably plausible. One can arbitrarily maintain it ; 
one can adopt an a priori assumption that Jesus never could 
have endorsed as genuine the miracles to which he is reported 
to have referred. But such a view must always be a pure 
assumption, unsustained by any candid examination of the 
records before us. Everywhere Jesus is described as speaking 
with the utmost reverence of the Old Testament Scriptures ; 
everywhere he speaks of the Jewish people as the recipient of 
a divine revelation ; everywhere he treats the events of Jewish 
history as facts, and as instructive facts. There is not the 
slightest indication that he represents the reputed miracles as 
any less authentic or less instructive than the other events of 
the past. Moreover, he is everywhere represented as himself 
working miracles and as appealing to them as a divine authenti- 
cation of his mission. It is, therefore, not a critical exegesis, 
but dogmatic caprice, which can find in the sources of our 



264 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

information any indication that Jesus did not hold to the genu- 
ineness of the Old Testament miracles. There is, therefore, 
no ground, except that of subjective caprice, for the notion that 
Jesus referred to the miracles merely by way of illustration, 
without meaning to imply whether he regarded them as fact 
or fiction. His auditors certainly regarded the Old Testament 
as a record of veritable history, miracles and all. There is 
no indication that Jesus had any different conception. And 
if he did, there is as much reason for supposing that he held 
the whole of Jewish history to be legendary, as for supposing 
that he held the miraculous part of it to be legendary. 

While, therefore, one may resort to either of these methods 
of invalidating Christ's endorsement of the Old Testament 
miracles, one cannot do so reasonably. There remains to the 
skeptic only to assume that Christ himself, though he believed 
in the reality of the Old Testament miracles, was mistaken 
in so believing. But this, as we have before seen, is equivalent 
to a rejection of the authority of Christ as an inspired bearer 
of a divine revelation. 

In general, therefore, the fact of miracles under the Old 
Testament dispensation must be regarded as affirmed by Christ 
and the authors of the New Testament. If there still remain 
any question, it must have reference to matters of detail. It 
may sometimes be doubted whether the original narrative is to 
be understood as that of a miracle. It is possible to suppose, for 
example, in the case of the history of Jonah, 1 that what at first 
blush seems to be an account of miraculous events, was in 
reality quite otherwise meant. But the presumption will 
always remain that, when the Old Testament presents narratives 
of palpably miraculous events, and these are referred to in the 
New Testament as historical, they are to be regarded as authen- 
ticated by such reference. 

It is unnecessary to dwell in detail on the several references 
in the New Testament to the Old Testament miracles. And as 
to the unmentioned ones, we can only say that, as the Old Testa- 
ment, substantially at least in the form in which we still have 
it, was received by Christ and his followers as a trustworthy 

1 See Excursus VIII. 



THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 265 

history of the earlier revelation, the presumption is that the 
miracles were generally accepted as historic facts. And the 
same answer is to be made to the question : — 

4. How far do Christ and his disciples authenticate the Old 
Testament history in general ? On the one hand, they cannot 
be appealed to as directly vouching for all the details of that 
history, especially when they are not referred to ; on the other, 
there is a presumption that, since they certainly accepted the 
Old Testament in general as a sacred record of God's dealings 
with men, and particularly with the Jewish race, they regarded 
the book as trustworthy in its details. 

The use made of the Old Testament by Christ and his apos- 
tles is mostly or wholly a practical use. Moral and religious 
lessons are enforced not only by appeal to psalmists and 
prophets, but by reference also to historical events. That the 
reference is made for such a purpose, does not indicate that the 
events referred to are for that reason any the less historic ; on 
the contrary, that such a use is made of them is rather a witness 
to their superior importance as historic facts. But the homiletic 
or religious use made of Biblical incidents carries with it that 
the reference is generally to the salient and suggestive features 
of the events, rather than to the subordinate details. Thus Paul 
refers to the original sin of Adam in order to set forth the scope 
of the atonement of Christ (Bom. v. 12-21) ; he does not here 
even mention Adam by name ; but he does in 1 Cor. xv. 22, 45, 
where a similar general reference is made to Adam as bringing 
death into the world, as contrasted with Christ, the life-giver. 
Now Paul here does not specifically refer to the Book of Genesis, 
nor even to the Old Testament Scriptures in general. No one 
could prove from these passages that he accepted the story of 
the fall as it is given in detail in Gen. iii. Yet no one can 
doubt that he really alludes to the familiar history, — an assur- 
ance which is confirmed when we find him elsewhere (2 Cor. 
xi. 3) speaking of Eve's being tempted by the serpent, and 
again (without mention of the serpent) in 1 Tim. ii. 13, 14. 
A general reference to the creation of man and woman is made 
in 1 Cor. xi. 8, 9, and in 1 Tim. ii. 13, but without allusion to 
details. But no one can doubt that he was familiar with the 



266 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

Book of Genesis, that he here refers to it, and that he implicitly 
attests the history which is there given. The question of special 
interest, however, is whether Paul's use of the narrative com- 
mits us to any particular interpretation of it. Must we, on 
account of his allusions to the story, understand it in the most 
literal way ? Need we understand it as real history at all ? 
May it not be a mystical, symbolical, or allegorical representa- 
tion of man's primeval history, or even of the moral development 
of thq human race in general ? This view of the narrative of 
Gen. ii -iii., as old at least as Philo, 1 has been held by many 
interpreters in all periods of the Christian Church. 2 It cannot 
be called an inadmissible or heterodox view, provided it can be 
made clear that the author intended the story to be understood in 
this manner. Even if it could be plausibly made out that such 
was the author's intention, it would still be possible that Paul 
understood it literally. In that case we should have to admit 
a hermeneutical error on the apostle's part. It seems pretty 
certain that Paul looked on the history of the first pair as in 
part at least historical. The comparison of Adam with Christ 
would be utterly pointless if Adam were not conceived of as an 
individual, and as a historical individual. So the assertion that 
Adam was first formed, then Eve, and that the woman, not the 
man, was deceived (1 Cor. xi. 8, 9 ; 1 Tim. ii. 13, 14), must imply 
that Paul regarded those two features of the story, at least, as 
facts. He argues from the facts, and draws practical inferences 
from them, — all which would be absurd, if he had supposed 
the story to be a purely allegorical representation of the human 
race. 

If we look further in the New Testament for references to 
this section of Genesis, we find one in Matt. xix. 4-6 (cf. Mark 
x. 6-9), where Christ distinctly refers to the creation of man, 
the original distinction of sex, and the institution of marriage, 
as recorded in Gen. i. 27, ii. 24. We must believe that, so far 
at least as this point is concerned, he speaks of the narrative as 

1 On the Creation of the World, \\ 55-61. He makes the serpent symbolic 
of pleasure. 

2 See Quarry, Genesis and its Authorship, pp. 29 sqq. y for illustrations of this 
statement. 



THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 267 

historical. When he contrasted the Mosaic law of divorce with 
what God instituted " from the beginning," there would have 
been no meaning in his reply to the Jews' question, unless he 
had assumed it to be a fact, as recorded in Genesis, that there 
was one original human pair united together in marriage. 
Further, we find in Eev. ii. 7, xxii. 2, a " tree of life " given as the 
conspicuous feature of the heavenly Paradise. This, however, 
though undoubtedly an allusion to Gen. ii. 9, iii. 22, is not such 
a reference as necessarily involves any opinion as to the historical 
character of the original tree of life. Indeed it has been argued 
that, this heavenly tree of life being evidently allegorical, we 
may reason back to the conclusion that the first one was no less 
so. 1 But this is manifestly fallacious. As well might it be 
inferred from Eev. xxi. 2, where the new Jerusalem is described 
as seen coming down out of heaven, that, the language being 
plainly allegorical, the old Jerusalem of Palestine, to which 
allusion is made, was allegorical also. On the contrary, since 
facts furnish the basis of figures, the figurative language of 
the Apocalypse would seem to point to a historic fact as its 
foundation. 

If we examine the original history itself, the first observa- 
tion to be made is, that the narrative of Gen. i.-iii. is indissolubly 
connected with what follows. The same Adam and Eve there 
described as created and tempted are afterwards described as 
having children, who in turn also have children. The human 
race is represented as proceeding from this pair, and human 
history as beginning with them. If Gen. i. — iii. are allegorical 
throughout, we have no right to make the allegory end with 
iii. 24. Allegorical characters cannot be transformed into real 
characters. If Adam and Eve were unreal personages at 
the outset, they must have remained so to the end. And 
their children and children's children must have been equally 
allegorical. 

A certain historical element must, then, be assumed to be- 
long to these chapters, at least in the intention of the writer. A 
modification of the allegorical hypothesis, however, may be 
adopted, to the effect that on a basis of historic fact the author 

1 So Quarry, Genesis, etc., p. 113. 



268 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

has constructed a description which largely abounds in alle- 
goric or symbolic features. This hypothesis may be that 
these features are mythical, or that they are the inventions of 
the writer himself ; in either case they are supposed to embody 
certain moral and religious ideas. In favor of this view it is 
urged that the narrative abounds in representations which are 
so improbable in themselves, and so unlike anything else in 
sacred history, that the writer must have intended to be un- 
derstood as veiling his meaning under a mystical garb. The 
making of a human body first, and putting life into it after- 
wards ; a tree whose fruit could confer immortality, and an- 
other whose fruit bestowed the power of moral distinctions ; 
the construction of a woman out of a man's rib ; a serpent en- 
dowed with the faculty of speech, and with intellectual cunning 
sufficient to tempt the woman to disobedience ; Jehovah walking 
in the garden, and the guilty pair hiding from him ; the cursing 
of the serpent and condemning him to go on his belly (as he 
must have done already before), — all these are certainly traits 
which do not characterize history in general, whether sacred or 
profane. They resemble the fabulous or the mythical. Did 
the writer mean to be understood literally ? 

The question is not altogether easy to answer. Even though 
one should find himself unable to believe that the facts ever 
literally corresponded to the description, it would not follow but 
that the writer meant it all literally. It is impossible to de- 
termine at what point a narrative becomes so improbable that 
we cannot suppose the writer to believe in the truth of what he 
writes. It is certain that many of the readers of the story — 
perhaps the larger part of them ■ — have believed in the literal 
truth of it. If so, it is certainly possible that the writer did the 
same. Still it is perfectly legitimate to argue, from the internal 
evidence, that the writer must have meant to be Understood 
allegorically. Can it be that a Hebrew theist could represent 
Jehovah as jealous of man's advance in knowledge, and as 
afraid lest he might attain immortality through the eating of 
a certain fruit (Gen. iii. 22) ? Can it be that he really regarded 
human sin as first introduced into the world through the cun- 
ning persuasions of a talking snake ? Can it be that he could 



THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 269 

have thought the tree of knowledge of good and evil capable 
of producing such a marvellous physical, mental, and moral 
effect on human beings ? Can it be that he conceived of a rib 
as transmogrified into a woman ? Does not the very crowding 
together of so many singular things argue a very peculiar style 
of composition ? Is it not warrantable in itself, as well as con- 
sonant with sound religious sense, to suppose that these feat- 
ures in the story are figures and symbols of truths which the 
writer could in no other way so well convey ? A substratum 
of historic fact may be assumed ; but may not the clothing 
be deemed allegoric ? 

This is certainly plausible ; and it will hardly be possible 
absolutely to disprove the correctness of this hypothesis. There 
are many sporadic specimens of parables, and even of fables, in 
the Bible ; may not this be a historico-parabolic tale ? The 
supposition is all the more plausible, inasmuch as the topics 
treated of belong to a time and a sphere so entirely strange to 
human experience. It seems not improbable that a vivid im- 
pression of the primeval history and its moral significance 
could be best given in certain graphic pictures and symbolic 
representations, which may not literally correspond to the ac- 
tual facts. The common interpretation of the temptation con- 
firms to some extent this conception. It is usually assumed 
that the real tempter was not the serpent, but the devil. The 
devil is called " that old serpent " in Eev. xx. 2. The serpent 
has generally been made a type of malicious cunning. If Eve 
was in fact tempted by Satan, may it not be that this intro- 
duction of the serpent in the narrative is merely a parabolic 
way of stating the truth ? As soon as we assume Satan to 
have been at work, merely using the serpent as his tool, we de- 
part from the literal sense of the account ; for this says ex- 
plicitly that the serpent did the tempting, being more subtile 
than the other beasts. It would be only departing one step 
further from the literal sense to assume that there was no 
literal serpent concerned in the temptation, but that the writer 
describes the Satanic work under the guise of a temptation 
effected through a serpent, leaving it undetermined just what 
the actual process of the temptation was. 



270 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

So as regards certain other features of Gen. ii. and iii. To 
some minds the story of the rib is the most difficult to believe, 
if taken in all literalness. To represent God as like a surgeon 
putting Adam into a state of insensibility, cutting out a rib, 
and then closing up the wound, is certainly not in harmony 
with ordinary conceptions of the divine working. To other 
minds the statements about the two trees are especially offen- 
sive. To others again it seems strange that the effect of dis- 
obedience should be described as simply shame on account of 
physical nakedness. In all these things we may find symbolic 
suggestions of deep spiritual truths ; 2 but if the literal sense is 
the whole sense, the story seems crass, if not even fantastic 
and grotesque. 

On the other hand, however, it is not necessary to assume 
that the literal sense is the whole sense. If a fictitious repre- 
sentation can be symbolic of spiritual truth, equally well, or 
better still, may facts convey such instruction. And when we 
bear in mind that ordinary human experience can furnish no 
parallel to the conditions of creation and of man's primeval 
history, we see reason for not being too positive as to what may 
or may not have been the exact truth relative to that distant 
and unique period with which the first chapters of Genesis have 
to do. It has often been remarked of late years that that narra- 
tive is much more true to intrinsic probability, in picturing the 
primitive man, as a being of childlike simplicity and artlessness, 
than the older theological conceptions of him, according to 
which he was from the very first of super-angelic capacities 
and knowledge. The statements about the two trees are the 
most characteristic and suggestive in the whole section. To 
many minds these trees are unmistakably symbolic, — not real 
trees, but poetic representations of the motives and aims of 
human action. But to others not only is there nothing incredi- 
ble in supposing that the trees were real, but this supposition 
seems the most in accordance with what must have been the 
original mental and moral condition of the primeval man. As 
with young children the first great moral struggle has generally 
to do with some command concerning an outward palpable 
1 Cf. Delitzsch, Commentar uber die Genesis. 



THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 271 

object, — a command not to touch this or that, or to go here or 
there, — and not one relating to the general duty of benevolence ; 
so the question whether the first man, in the incipiency of his 
moral development, was to remain loyal to God could be better 
tested by a command respecting the enjoyment of certain fruits 
than by abstract precepts which as yet must have been unin- 
telligible to him. As to any poisonous properties in the tree 
of knowledge, such as many commentators have told about, 
the narrative itself says nothing. 1 In what sense it conferred 
knowledge the sequel of the eating indicates. The disobedience 
in the eating produced the moral effect of developing an evil 
conscience ; the guilty pair fled from the presence of Jehovah. 
There is more appearance of an intention on the part of the 
writer to ascribe a peculiar physical power to the other tree. 
Its name, and especially the language which Jehovah is repre- 
sented as using in hi. 22, seem to imply that its fruit was con- 
ceived as capable of conferring physical immortality. But it is 
in accordance with the analogy of the name and function of the 
other tree, and involves a very slight straining of the apparent 
literal sense of the description, if we regard the tree of life as 
symbolizing the reward of obedience. It was the palpable 
pledge of the divine favor. It represented, but did not confer, 
the " life " which was the real reward. And as a child, whose 
disobedience has caused him to forfeit a promised reward, is 
made to feel his guilt most keenly by being removed from all 
sight and reach of the expected gift, especially since by a 
natural confusion of thought he is apt to imagine that if he 
can only by any means get hold of the coveted object he in 
some sense neutralizes the effect of his disobedience ; so it was 
necessary for Jehovah to drive Adam and Eve away from the tree 
whose fruit they might look on as somehow able to repair the 
damage which their sin had wrought. The language of hi. 22 
admits this construction with certainly less forcing of its strict 
sense than is used when in the account of the temptation we 
understand the real tempter to be, not the serpent, but Satan. 
This illustrates what is most probably the correct exegesis 

1 Even Delitzsch, however {Commentar ilber die Genesis on ii. 9), assumes 
that the tree had in it such a quality for one who disobediently ate of it. 



272 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

of this unique section. Just how far the literal meaning must 
be pressed, it may be difficult to determine. But there is no 
sufficient ground for thinking that the writer did not mean to 
be understood as narrating substantial history. And the ref- 
erence which Paul makes to the story of the temptation cannot 
naturally be understood otherwise than as implying that he 
believed in its essential truthfulness. 

The case is somewhat similar with regard to the narrative of 
the creation in the first chapter of Genesis. Here, however, the 
direct references in the New Testament are more scanty, and 
the chief interest gathers around the relation of the narrative 
to the results of geological research. If we except general 
statements about God as Creator, the New Testament nowhere 
makes reference to this chapter except in Matt. xix. 4 (cf. Mark 
x. 6), where Christ quotes Gen. i. 27, and in 2 Cor. iv. 6, where 
Paul alludes to Gen. i. 3. Incidentally the first and the last of 
the works of the six days are thus referred to, and by implica- 
tion endorsed as facts. 

There is not the same temptation to resort to the allegorical 
interpretation with reference to chapter i. as with reference to 
chapters ii. and iii. But those who despair of seeing any recon- 
ciliation effected between the testimony of Genesis and that of 
geology are often disposed to find relief in the hypothesis 
that the author of Gen. i. really did not design to narrate his- 
toric or geologic facts at all, but only to set forth the truth that 
one personal God is the Sovereign of the universe. There is an 
important truth in this view; but it is easy to overwork it. 
Thus, it is observed that the plan of the chapter is highly 
artistic, especially in that there is a manifest correspondence 
between each of the first three days and the corresponding days 
in the second triad. That is, the first day describes the cre- 
ation of light, and the fourth, that of the luminaries ; the second, 
the formation of the realms of air and water, and the fifth, that 
of the fowls and fishes which inhabit those elements ; the third, 
the preparation of the dry land, and the sixth, that of land 
animals and man, the inhabitants of the dry land. From this 
it is inferred that the description is purely ideal, not historical, 
that the author had no thought of portraying the literal order of 



THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 273 

geologic events, that his point of view was purely theological, and 
that therefore it is idle to talk of a real or possible contradiction 
between this description and the conclusions of geologists. 1 

This, however, is a somewhat too easy way of getting over a 
difficulty. No doubt the narrative has a monotheistic and re- 
ligious aim ; no doubt also the arrangement is ideal and artis- 
tic. But from this it does not follow that the writer did not 
mean to be understood as narrating facts. Facts may be both 
real and ideal. If the author wished only to set forth the fact 
that God is the Maker and Euler of all things, he could have 
done so in two or three sentences, summarily stating the grand 
truth, without going into a detailed account of a creative process. 
He would thus never have given rise to the vexed questions 
about the harmony or disharmony between his narrative and 
the truths of geology. The very fact that, instead of confining 
himself to such a general statement, he undertook to give a 
particular history of the process of creation, would seem to 
indicate that he thought there really was such a process. Other- 
wise it is hard to see why he invented it. It was not necessary 
in order to the enunciation of the theological and religious truth 
which alone he is supposed to have aimed to impress on his 
readers. By introducing it he has in fact made the impression 
that he meant to describe a real process, though the ideality and 
beauty of the form of his description was long ago recognized. 

On the whole, then, we can hardly do better than to regard 
the question as still awaiting a full solution. In general, it is a 
fixed and remarkable fact that in its grand features the Mosaic 
account strikingly corresponds with the conclusions of geologists, 
however difficult or impossible it may be to bring the details 
into complete harmony. 

The other references in the New Testament to the historical 
parts of the Old can be dealt with more briefly. In general, 
there can be no reasonable question that, when such a reference 
is made, it implies on the part of the author a belief in the 
authenticity of the record referred to. For example, when Jesus 

1 So, e> g., Prof. W. G. Elmslie on The First Chapter of Genesis in Con- 
temporary Review, December, 1887, where this view is forcibly and eloquently 
set forth. 

18 



274 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

quoted in his own defense the conduct of David in eating the 
shew-bread (Matt. xii. 3, 4), it is clear that he regarded the 
incident as a historic fact. And so with all similar cases. 

There is one class of references, however, respecting which 
there is more doubt how far their testimony goes ; we mean 
those references which touch on a question of authorship. 
When Christ speaks of Moses and the law of Moses, we must 
distinguish between an allegation that Moses commanded this 
or that, and an allegation that he wrote this or that. The ex- 
plicit statement that Moses wrote anything is made by Christ 
only twice, viz., in Mark x. 5, and in John v. 45-47. 1 But in 
either case the reference is only to a specific thing, and cannot 
be adduced as evidence concerning the composition of the Pen- 
tateuch in general. Where we read about the " law of Moses " 
(Luke xxiv. 44 ; John vii. 23), or the " book of Moses " (Mark 
xii. 26), or about Moses in general as a legislator (Mark i. 44, 
vii. 10 ; Luke xvi. 29 ; John v. 45, vii. 19), we can infer no more 
than that Moses was regarded as the promulgator, under divine 
direction, of the legal part of the Pentateuch; whether he himself 
wrote down the whole code, or delivered it in part orally, to be re- 
corded afterwards by others, is left undecided by such references. 

But even if it should be admitted that in Jesus' time the Pen- 
tateuch was popularly ascribed to Moses in the sense that he 
wrote the whole of it, yet a general reference to the book, or a 
particular quotation from it as the book of Moses, does not 
necessarily commit Christ or an apostle to a positive endorse- 
ment of this popular opinion. 2 Such quotations and references 
concern the matter, not the author, of the book. The book would 
most naturally be designated according to the current title of it. 
If Moses was regarded as the promulgator of the Pentateuchal 
laws, the Pentateuch would almost of necessity be called the 
book of Moses, even though parts of it may have been written 
by other men. Paul, therefore, in speaking of the reading of 

1 The Sadducees speak of the Levirate law as having been written by Moses, 
Mark xii. 19 ; Luke xx. 28. 

2 So one may quote a passage as from " Homer," without meaning to com- 
mit himself necessarily to the theory of the Homeric authorship of all the so- 
called Homeric books. 



THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 275 

the Scripture in the synagogues, could say, " Whensoever Moses 
is read" (2 Cor. iii. 15), without necessarily meaning to be under- 
stood as affirming that Moses himself wrote all of the books 
which went by his name. Or when he quotes a particular 
passage, and prefaces it by saying, " Moses describeth " (Eom. x. 
5), or "Moses saith" (x. 19), the stress is laid on the thing said, 
not on the person saying it, and does not necessarily mean more 
than that we read in the book of Moses this or that. 1 

The case is similar as regards references to the Psalter. The 
phrase " in David," as used in Heb. iv. 7, most naturally means, 
"in the book commonly called the Psalms of David." The pas- 
sage referred to (Ps. xcv. 7, 8) is in a psalm not ascribed to 
David or any one else. It would be unwarrantable to try to 
find in this reference to the passage authentic information as to 
the authorship, when in the original Hebrew the psalm is anony- 
mous. And even when Paul uses the expression, " David saith " 
(as in Eom. iv. 6, xi. 9), inasmuch as the point of the quotation 
lies in the thing said, not in the person who said it, the formula 
of quotation is not necessarily to be understood as meaning any- 
thing more than that the words quoted are found in the book 
commonly called the Psalms of David. The case is somewhat 
different with the references to David in Matt. xxii. 43-45 
(Mark xii. 35-37 ; Luke xx. 41-44), where the point of the re- 
ference depends on the Davidic authorship of Ps. ex. ; and also 
with the use which Peter (Acts ii. 25-33) and Paul (Acts xiii. 
35-37) make of Ps. xvi. 

The general attestation which Christ and his disciples give 
to the Old Testament history is not impaired by the fact that 
they also, in some cases, make statements that appear to rest 
on Jewish tradition, as distinct from the Old Testament 
writings, unless the tradition is contrary to the Scriptures. 
And it is very doubtful whether any such contradiction can 
be found. Where a tradition is followed, we can only say that 
this is something additional to the Scriptural history. The 
following are instances : In 2 Tim. iii. 8, Jannes and Jambres 
are given as the names of the magicians who withstood Moses ; 

1 Vide, on the general subject of the witness of the New Testament to the 
Old, E. Watson, The Law and the Prophets, Excursus, pp. 25 sqq. 



276 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

whereas in Exodus no names are mentioned. A Jewish tra- 
dition, found in the Talmud, had given these as the names 
of the magicians, together with other particulars about them. 1 
Whether the names are genuine or not, is of little account. 
Paul used them as those familiarly known to his readers ; and 
nothing depended on the accuracy of the tradition. Even if 
we had to assume, with Schbttgen, that Paul was divinely 
inspired to confirm the Jewish tradition as to the names, 
still his using them in no way brings the passage into any 
disagreement with the history as given in Exodus. A still 
more striking instance of Jewish tradition in the New Tes- 
tament is found in 1 Cor. x. 4. Paul here alludes to a 
notion current among the Jews, that a rock flowing with 
water followed the Israelites in their wanderings. It is 
only an allusion, however. Paul does not endorse the story, 
but spiritualizes it. He says there was a spiritual rock 
that followed the Jews ; he does not imply that he adopted 
the notion that a literal rock followed them. In Jude 9, where 
reference is made to a contention between Michael and Satan, 
use is made of a Jewish legend concerning the burial of Moses. 
And in verses 14, 15, a quotation is made from the apocryphal 
Book of Enoch. Here the writer appears to accept the tra- 
ditions. But whatever may be made out of these references 
(and being in a deutero-canonical book they are of less sig- 
nificance than otherwise), they do not at all affect the general 
question of New Testament references to the Old. 

In some other cases also there are found modifications of Old 
Testament incidents, or additions to them, which may rest on 
oral tradition. In the description, given in Heb. xi. 33-38, of 
the doings and sufferings of the Hebrew saints and heroes, 
there are features which cannot be traced directly to any record 
in the Old Testament. Some of them (especially in verses 35- 
37) can be illustrated only by the Books of the Maccabees; 
and one of them — the being sawn asunder — undoubtedly 
refers to a current tradition that the prophet Isaiah was thus 
put to death. In Acts vii. 53, Gal. iii. 19, and Heb. ii. 2, the 
law is said to have been ordained through angels, — a statement 
1 For which cf. Schbttgen, Horae Hebraicae, in loc. 






THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 277 

which agrees with one found in Josephus (Ant. xv. 5, 3), and 
with the Iiabbinical notion, but nowhere distinctly intimated 
in the Old Testament. The poetic passage in Deut. xxxiii. 2, 
where Jehovah is said to have come " from the ten thousands 
of holy ones," especially in the LXX. version, where the last 
clause of the verse reads, " on his right hand angels with him," 
is the only one in the Old Testament which could suggest the 
conception. In Luke iv. 25, and James v. 17, the length of 
the drought foretold by Elijah is definitely given as three years 
and a half, though in the Old Testament the length is not 
given. The "third year " of 1 Kings xviii. 1, leaves us un- 
certain from what point the reckoning was made. The definite 
period of three years and a half may very probably have been 
adopted from a common tradition. It does not contradict the 
narrative in the Book of Kings; it is simply an exact figure 
which can easily enough be made to harmonize with that 
narrative, though not directly suggested by it. 1 

1 Professor Ladd (Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 69) finds this tradi- 
tion " divergent" from the Old Testament account, and discovers in the phrase 
eVt r.aa-av rrjv yrjv " a popular hyperbole which spoke of the drought as extend- 
ing over the whole earth." This, however, hardly seems to be pertinent as an 
instance of Christ's " uncritical attitude " towards details ; for yrj surely means 
" land " as well as "earth" (vide Thayer's Grimm's Lexicon, sub voc); and as the 
same double meaning belongs to ""IE"}*?, one might find the same hyperbole in 
1 Kings xviii. 1. Professor Ladd finds also in Luke xvii. 27, and Matt. xxiv. 
38, "features added to the narrative of Genesis," viz., the eating, drinking, and 
marrying, and infers from them that Christ here was following u a tradition of 
the Elood which differed in some particulars from that of the Hebrew Scriptures." 
But surely it hardly required a special tradition to suggest to Christ that the 
antediluvians were in the habit of eating, drinking, and marrying ! Not more 
reason is there for the opinion that the drinking is " in apparent contradiction of 
the narrative of Gen. ix. 20." Professor Wright's reply (Divine Authority of the 
Bible, p. 185), that it is not implied in this narrative that no wine was made 
before the Flood, may be sufficient ; but a more obvious one is that Christ says 
nothing about wine at all. Could not the antediluvians drink water? A 
German comic song represents Noah as praying for a new kind of beverage 
after the Elood, on the ground that he has lost his relish for water, 

" For that therein have drowned been 
All sinful beasts and sons of men." 

But before that calamity what good reason for abstaining from water-drinking 
could there have been? 



278 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

Whatever in the New Testament writings may have been 
derived from tradition, as distinct from the Old Testament 
history, is, then, at the most very slight, and in no case in 
conflict with that history. At the same time in their use of 
the history there is no painful following of minute details. 
As in quoting from the Old Testament Christ and his apostles 
are not careful about literal exactness, so in referring to Old 
Testament history they are more concerned about the substance 
than about the form. It is manifest that they looked upon that 
history as in a very peculiar sense the arena on which God 
had displayed his power and grace. They found intimations, 
lessons, and types such as no other history contained. It was 
to them a sacred history. 

The foregoing has in part anticipated what needs to be more 
particularly considered under the head of the record of divine 
revelation. 



THE RECORD OE RE VELATION. — INSPIRATION. 279 



CHAPTEE IX. 

THE RECORD OF REVELATION. — INSPIRATION. 

THE distinction between revelation and the record of 
revelation is one which, though often overlooked, is 
legitimate and important. Jesus left no written record of his 
work and words ; but he revealed the divine character and will ; 
and even if no one else had ever prepared a written account 
of his mission, what he said and did would none the less have 
been a divine revelation which would have left its impress 
not only on his associates and contemporaries, but through 
tradition on succeeding generations. More particularly we 
may observe : — 

1. Eevelation is prior and superior to the record of it. The 
discovery of America was more important than the history of 
the discovery ; the invention of the telegraph, of more conse- 
quence than written descriptions of the invention. It is equally 
clear that God's original manifestation of himself was a weigh- 
tier matter than the Scriptural records of it. The records are 
important only because the revelation was important. In a 
certain sense it was an accidental circumstance that the revela- 
tion became a subject of written record. This method of trans- 
mitting the divine message may be the best available method ; 
but it is still only the mode of transmission; it is not the 
message itself. Oral tradition may serve the same purpose ; in 
some instances it has been the actual and even the only possible 
means of communicating the message. The primeval revelation, 
if there was one, must have been handed down at first without 
a written record. The gospel itself did its first work, and left 
its ineradicable impress on the world, before the narrative of 
Christ's work became committed to writing. If the art of 
writing had never been known, we are not to suppose that a 
divine revelation would have been impossible or ineffective. 



280 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

And in any case the revelation — the message of salvation — 
is of more account than the means by which it is recorded. 

2. It is likewise obvious that the divine revelation is of more 
account than the state of mind of those who wrote the record 
of it. In other words, revelation outranks in importance the 
inspiration of the sacred writers. If it was in a certain sense 
/ non-essential that the revelation should be scripturally recorded 

at all, still more non-essential must it be that the writers should 
have been in such and such a state of mind when they wrote. 
If the revelation was to be put into a written form, the most 
urgent requisite was that it should be accurately recorded. 
Provided this could be done without any miraculous or special 
influence exerted on the penmen, such a special inspiration can- 
not be pronounced indispensable. In many cases certainly it is 
conceivable that an accurate and trustworthy account of reve- 
latory facts might have been written without any other than the 
ordinary faculties of mind and facilities of obtaining knowledge. 
In so far as the Biblical writers told the truth, it is quite im- 
material whether in telling it they were worked on by an 
extraordinary divine influence or not. Inspiration, as working 
on the original recipient of the divine message, cannot of course 
be regarded as unimportant ; it is involved in the very idea of 
special revelation that the organ of it should be supernaturally 
inspired to receive it. But when it has once been received, 
there is no obvious and intrinsic reason why others may not 
learn and communicate the message without such supernatural 
inspiration. Certainly the masses of those to whom the word 
of revelation comes receive it and transmit it without such 
special inspiration. So those who made the written record 
which has come down to us may possibly have made it with 
the exercise of only ordinary powers of observation and acquisi- 
tion. Conscientious and pains-taking effort to tell the truth 
might have given us all that is essential in the message re- 
vealed. At the best, special inspiration could have been only a 
means of securing a more perfect record of what without it 
might have been recorded with substantial faithfulness. 1 

1 See Alex. Mair, Studies in the Christian Evidences, chap. iii. " It is quite 
certain that we are not shut up by any stern necessity of an a priori kind to 



THE RECORD OF REVELATION. — INSPIRATION. 281 

3. The proof of the fact of a revelation does not depend on 
the assumption of the special inspiration of the Biblical writers. 
This is, if possible, still more evident than the preceding propo- 
sitions. We are not convinced that the patriarchs, apostles, 
and the Eedeemer were inspired to receive a revelation, because 
we are first convinced that some persons, whose very names may 
be unknown to us, were specially inspired to write down the 
account of the supernatural revelation. There would be no 
occasion for asserting, and no ground for believing, that the 
Biblical writers were divinely inspired, unless there were ante- 
cedently an assumption that it was a divine revelation which 
they were specially commissioned to describe. The writers are 
believed to have been inspired, because there is believed to have 
been an all-important revelation which needed to be carefully 
recorded. If there is no antecedent faith in the fact of a divine 
revelation, there is no proof of the inspiration of the Scriptures 
which can carry conviction to any thinking mind. The mere 
assertions of the writers that they were inspired, even if we 
had many more of them, would prove nothing, unless their 
general veracity were on independent grounds very firmly estab- 
lished ; for such peculiar claims would themselves provoke 
distrust, unless the claimants are shown to be peculiarly trust- 
worthy. And when the contents of the Bible are appealed to 
as proof of the sincerity and truthfulness of the claims of in- 
spiration on the part of the writers, the argument assumes the 
truth of the things narrated. 1 That is to say, a revelation, 
about which the Scriptures treat, is assumed to be a fact before 
the inspiration of the writers is regarded as proved ; otherwise 
the nature of the contents of the Bible would be no proof of 

one or other of the two extremes : to verbal inspiration, or absolute skepticism ; 
we may reasonably hold the middle way of practical common-sense certainty." 
1 This is implied also by Dr. Lee {Inspiration of Holy Scripture, p. 94, 
4th ed., 1865), where he argues that it is no petitio principii to adduce proofs 
from Scripture of its own inspiration. The credibility, he says, of the sacred 
writers is established by independent proofs. " Having convinced ourselves of 
the authority of the Bible, that its doctrines are revealed, that its facts are 
true, we can feel no scruple in admitting as accurate the character which its 
own writers ascribe to it." We cannot believe the Biblical writers to be truth- 
ful, unless we believe what they say about divine revelations. 



282 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

its inspiration. Manifestly, therefore, we cannot reverse the 
order of argumentation, and prove the fact of a revelation by 
the fact of the inspiration of the Biblical writers. 

What is thus clear as a general proposition is, if possible, 
clearer still, when the argument for the inspiration of the New 
Testament in particular is considered. That argument, as ordi- 
narily conducted, is substantially this : The apostles' claim of 
special inspiration is to be credited because Christ promised 
them such inspiration. And Christ's promise is to be credited 
because he was the Son of God sent to bring salvation to men. 
Obviously the fact of the divine revelation mediated by Jesus 
Christ is here assumed in the argument for the inspiration of 
the New Testament ; and of course, therefore, the genuineness 
of the revelation cannot conversely be inferred from the inspira- 
tion. The revelation is first credited on other grounds. The 
testimony of the apostles concerning Christ is credited, as it 
was credited before they had written anything, on the ground 
of their general credibility, and the special evidences of their 
sincerity. Their particular testimony about Christ's promise of 
the Holy Ghost would not be accepted, unless their general 
testimony concerning Christ's character and mission were first 
accepted. In other words, the general fact and the general con- 
tents of the Christian revelation are assumed as the foundation 
of the argument for a special inspiration of the New Testament 
writers. Clearly, then, it would be preposterous to make the 
truth of the alleged revelation rest on the reality of a special 
apostolic inspiration. 

The foregoing considerations, while they may seem to degrade 
the importance of the doctrine of inspiration, or even to make 
the fact of it questionable, serve to guard what is more import- 
ant than this doctrine from resting on an insecure foundation. 
They tend to assure us that the essential facts and truths of 
supernatural revelation are secure, even though the Scriptural 
witnesses can adduce for themselves no supernatural attestation 
of their credibility. They serve to show that doubts or cavils 
about the alleged inspiration of the recorders of the revelation 
do not need to unsettle the foundation of one's faith in the 
revelation itself. 



THE RECORD OF REVELATION. — INSPIRATION. 283 

But if the case is as above stated, is not the doctrine of 
inspiration shown to be without any solid foundation ? Shall 
we not abandon the theory of the special inspiration of the 
Biblical writers ? By such an abandonment we do not neces- 
sarily lose any of the truths of revelation; and we gain the 
advantage of being relieved of the difficulties which encumber 
the theory of Biblical inspiration. We are relieved of the 
obligation to determine how this inspiration differed from the 
inspiration which is enjoyed by all pious men. We are freed 
from many of the embarrassments which beset the question of 
canonicity. 

It certainly does follow from what we have here conceded 
concerning inspiration, that it is not of the central importance 
which it has often been made to assume. One may hold to all 
the essential doctrines of revealed religion; one may exercise 
the most perfect faith in Jesus Christ ; one may insist on the 
unique value of the Bible, and yet see no sufficient reason to 
believe that any exceptional supernatural influence was exerted 
on its authors when they were writing it. Still it does not 
follow that the doctrine of Biblical inspiration is unfounded or 
unimportant. We remark therefore : — 

4. That there is substantial ground for holding to the doctrine 
of the special inspiration of the Bible. But before presenting 
any positive arguments for this proposition, we need to make 
certain preliminary observations. 

a. In the strict and proper sense, not the Scriptures, but 
only the Scriptural writers, can be said to be inspired. A writ- 
ing is a merely material thing, having no meaning or use 
except as it is the product of a mind. A book, as a mere book, 
can no more be inspired than a rock. The inspiration can have 
to do only with the production of the book, and must operate 
on the conscious author. When we speak, as for convenience 
every one does, of an inspired book, we make use of a trope 
quite similar to that which is found in the phrase " a learned 
book," in which case of course no one means that the book is 
learned, but that the author is. Whatever may be one's theory 
of inspiration, the inspiration must be conceived as imparted 
to the writer, unless one goes so far as to make the writer a 



284 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

mere tool, as passive and irresponsible as a pen in the divine 
hand. But in that case there would, properly speaking, be no 
inspiration at all. The case would simply be that God had 
written a book ; we could not say that he had inspired it. But 
it is hardly necessary to consider this view. For — 

h. It is now generally conceded that the Biblical writers 
were conscious and responsible in the act of writing. They did 
not act as mere machines, the merely passive agents of another 
power. When Luke speaks of having " traced the course of all 
things accurately from the first " (i. 3) ; when Paul (1 Cor. i. 16) 
appeals to his memory in reference to what he writes ; when 
Biblical writers generally (especially Paul) discourse about their 
personal history and inward experience, — it is impossible not to 
assume that such writers were intensely conscious of what they 
were doing. Even the peculiar ecstasy which was often ex- 
perienced by the Hebrew prophets, and sometimes by the 
apostles (Acts x. 10, xxii. 17 ; 2 Cor. xii. 1-4), cannot be shown 
to have suspended the self -consciousness of the subject of those 
experiences. But even if the extremest Montanistic view 
respecting this matter were to be adopted, this would still prove 
nothing as to the mental condition of those who wrote the 
Biblical books. Without explicit testimony to the effect that 
these men, when writing, were in an ecstatic or even uncon- 
scious state, the presumption must be that they were in their 
normal self-conscious state, and used their faculties in the act 
of writing. 

c. It follows from the foregoing that the product of the Biblical 
inspiration, as of that of the ordinary Christian, is not a purely 
divine product, but is also a human product. The inspired man 
is not only conscious, but he consciously produces. There is a 
human element in the product. Even the so-called mechanical 
theory of inspiration, — the theory which conceives God to use 
inspired men as the passive vehicles of his communications, — 
even this cannot wholly dispense with a human side. The 
language which serves as the medium of communication is a 
human language, the product of human intercourse, expressive 
of human conceptions, limited in the range of its expressive- 
ness by human limitations. So that, even if the Biblical 



THE RECORD OE REVELATION. — INSPIRATION. 285 

writers are conceived of as ever so purely mechanical in their 
agency ; even if the writers were nothing more than mere tools, 
as passive in the power of the Spirit as a pen in the hand of a 
scribe, — still even then the Spirit would be using an instru- 
ment affected with human characteristics and human imperfec- 
tions, — an instrument which is often found unequal to the 
work of expressing our own human thoughts and feelings, and 
which therefore must be inadequate to the revelation of the 
wealth of divine truth. 

But this theory of inspiration is in its strictness not now 
defended by any school. It was an innovation when first 
propounded, growing out of antagonism to the Papal doctrine 
of tradition, and could not perpetuate itself as the general 
doctrine of the Church. We have hardly more than a sort of 
antiquarian interest in the doctrines propounded by such men 
as Quenstedt, 1 Baier, 2 Calovius, 3 Hollaz, 4 and others of the Post- 
Eeformation time. The marks of human individuality are too 
clearly traceable in the different parts of the sacred record to 
leave it possible for any reasonable man to regard the inspired 
writer as a mere tool or amanuensis. The desperate shift of 
the advocates of verbal inspiration, that the Holy Spirit 
adapted his style to the personal peculiarities of the several 
amanuenses, 5 even if there were any proof to be adduced for 

1 " Omnia enim, quae scribenda erant a Spiritu S. sacris Scriptoribus in 
actu isto inscribendi suggesta et intellectu eorum quasi in calamum dictitata 
sunt." Theologia didactico-polemica, Wittenberg, 1696, vol. i. p. 68. 

2 " Prout amanuensi in calamum dictantur, quae is scribere debeat." Com- 
pendium theologiae positiuae, ed. Preuss, Berlin, 1864, p. 46. 

8 " Nihil eorum [quae loquuti sunt] ac ne verbulum quidem humana volun- 
tate protulere." Systema locorum theologicorum, vol. i. p. 563, Wittenberg, 1655. 

4 " S. Scriptura ... est verbum Dei scriptum, i. e., sensus divinus Uteris 
a Spiritu S. amanuensibus sacris in calamum dictatis expressus." Scrutinium 
veritatis, Wittenberg, 1711, p. 34. 

6 Baier, ibid., p. 51. "Fatendum est Spiritum S. ipsum in suggerendis 
verborum conceptibus accommodasse se ad indolem et conditionem amanu- 
ensium." In more modern times Gaussen {Theopneustid) propounds essen- 
tially the same doctrine. Though he says (p. 31, Edinburgh ed., 1854), 
" Every verse without exception is man's; and every verse without exception 
is God's," thus apparently recognizing a human as well as a divine element in 
the Bible, yet he afterwards (p. 50) explains himself after this fashion : " If 



286 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

it, would be a burdensome doctrine to maintain ; for such an 
adaptation of himself to human peculiarities on the part of 
God would be useless in itself, and would involve all the 
elements of intentional deception. If the Holy Ghost merely 
wrote in the style of Moses and Peter, while yet Moses and 
Peter contributed absolutely nothing to the final production, it 
becomes a puzzling question why such an accommodation was 
made at all, unless it was to make the impression that these 
men really were consciously and actively productive in what 
they wrote, when in fact they were not. Nothing is gained 
in the matter of the communication of truth by such an 
adaptation of style ; nothing appears to be accomplished by it at 
all, except that the Divine author studiously conceals himself, 
while professedly revealing himself, and tries to make the im- 
pression that forty different men are writing, each in his own 
way and in accordance with his own mind and will, whereas, 
in fact, they are mere tools of a compelling power, made to 
write in spite of themselves just as they would write if they 
did not write in spite of themselves. 

But we need not dwell on this practically exploded hypothesis. 
It is true that in inspiring men God must in a sense adapt him- 
self to human conditions, and in particular to the individuals 

he [God] behooved on this earth to substitute for the syntax of heaven and 
the vocabulary of the archangels the words and the constructions of the He- 
brews or the Greeks, why not equally have borrowed their manners, style, and 
personality ? " And he repeatedly insists that it is not the man, but the book, 
that is inspired. God "dictated the whole Scriptures" (p. 47). Dean Bur- 
gon {Inspiration and Interpretation) scarcely falls short of this, when he says 
(p. 76), " The Bible, from the Alpha to the Omega of it, is filled to overflow- 
ing with the Holy Spirit of God : the Books of it, and the sentences of it, and 
the words of it, and the syllables of it, — aye, and the very letters of it." To 
be sure, he says (p. IT), " Least of all do we overlook the personality of the 
human writers." But he compares them to musical instruments, each 
of which gives forth its own music, but all of which were made by one 
artificer; quoting the illustration from Hooker, who makes the Biblical 
writers differ from the pipe or harp only in that they " felt the power and 
strength of their own words." The comparison is as old as the early church- 
fathers Justin (ad Graecos cokortatio, chap, viii.) and Athenagoras {legatis pro 
Ckristianis, chap. ix.). Vide Rudelbach (Zeitschrift fur die gewmmte Lu- 
therische Theologie, 1840, p. 27). 



THE RECORD OF REVELATION. — INSPIRATION. 287 

who record the revelation. But he uses the men, and does not 
merely imitate them. Not only human language is used, but the 
human language of those who act as God's agents. And not 
only their language, but antecedently to this their minds and 
hearts. 1 For language cannot be detached from the mind 
whose expression it is. Language is the product and repre- 
sentative of mental states. God, therefore, in using human 
language uses human minds as the medium of the communi- 
cation of his messages. 2 But if this is so, then in some sense 
the divine inspiration is shaped by the human subject of it. 
The inspired man, though inspired, yet speaks out of his own 
mind and heart, and speaks like himself, and not as a mere 
irresponsible reporter of another's words. 

d. There is no warrant for regarding the inspiration of the 
Bible as superior to that of the original organs of revelation. 
If we must compare the two in point of rank, we should rather 
give the precedence to the immediate recipients of the divine 

1 Row (Nature and Extent of Divine Inspiration, pp. 152 sq.) forcibly em- 
phasizes the fact that the Apostles call themselves witnesses. But " recollec- 
tion forms the essence of testimony." Even though the memory may be 
supernaturally quickened, still it must be the writer's own memory to which 
he appeals. He testifies what he himself once saw or heard. A pure dictation 
under which the writer was passive must have destroyed the value of the words 
as personal testimony. 

2 Of course it cannot be denied that God could, and possibly in some cases 
did, suggest particular words to those whom he specially inspired. It must, 
however, be insisted that this was not the usual method. All the evidence 
favors the view that not only the Biblical writers, but the original recipients 
of special revelations, retained and used their own powers while moved upon 
by the Spirit, and expressed each in his own way the thoughts which the in- 
spiration suggested. But, inasmuch as a divine influence, in order to accom- 
plish anything, must have affected the thoughts of the inspired men, and inas- 
much as thoughts cannot be dissociated from words, it might be argued that 
the inspiration must after all result practically in a suggestion of particular 
words. And this is true, if we make a distinction between the suggestion of 
mere words, as such, and the suggestion of thoughts which necessarily result 
in the use of words which would otherwise not have been used (Philippi's dis- 
tinction between Worterinspiration and Wortinspiration, in his Kirchliche Glau- 
benslekre, vol. i. p. 184, 1st ed.). Inspiration would be meaningless and fruitless, 
if it were not verbal inspiration in the latter sense. Warington {The Inspira- 
tion of Scripture, p. 260) has clearly and forcibly set forth this distinction. 



288 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

messages. These persons are generally described as divinely 
inspired, whereas the Biblical writers comparatively seldom lay 
claim to special inspiration as directing them in the act of 
writing. If the Biblical inspiration were to be regarded as 
superior to the other, we should have to maintain that the un- 
known writer who narrates the history of Elijah was more 
powerfully moved by the Spirit than the prophet himself ; that 
Luke, in reporting Paul's sermon on Mars' Hill was more thor- 
oughly inspired than Paul was in framing it ; nay, that each 
of the Evangelists, in recording the words and deeds of our 
Lord, was, so far as inspiration is concerned, more favored than 
He who received the Spirit without measure. Indeed, if the 
highest kind and degree of inspiration was accorded to the 
writers of the Bible, we may even wonder why there need have 
been any other. The inspired writers would seem in that case 
to have been the most suitable media of an original revelation ; 
and the antecedent revelation, mediated by an inferior inspira- 
tion, would become superfluous, or at all events superseded. The 
Scriptures would become, not so much the record of a revelation, 
as a new and more perfect revelation itself. 

It should indeed not be forgotten that, with regard to a large 
part of the Bible, this distinction between revelation and the 
record of it is slight. Such writings as the Psalms, the Prophet- 
ical books, and the Apostolic Epistles, may be regarded as prac- 
tically the direct utterances of the organs of revelation. The 
organ of the revelation and the historian of the revelation are 
one and the same individual. Yet even here the distinction is 
not annulled. The act of receiving a divine communication is 
not identical with that of committing it to writing. In many 
cases a considerable time seems to have intervened between the 
two events. So far as any distinction is to be made in such cases 
between the receiving and the recording of the revelation, the 
presumption would seem to be that the former requires the high- 
est degree of inspiration. The natural powers of memory might 
suffice for the recording of the communication ; but in order 
to the reception of it a supernatural inspiration is necessary. 

e. For like reasons we must assume that there is no ground 
for thinking that the organs of revelation were more perfectly 



THE RECORD OF REVELATION. — INSPIRATION. 289 

inspired when writing than when speaking under the impulse 
of the Spirit. On this point the case of Paul is the most in- 
structive. He often appeals to his apostolic authority, but not 
particularly to his letters, as distinguished from his oral utter- 
ances. Indeed in the only passage (2 Cor. x. 10) in which the 
two are directly contrasted with each other to the disadvantage 
of the oral utterances, the comparison is represented as made 
in an unfriendly spirit ; and Paul takes pains to assure the 
Corinthians that what he is in word by letter when absent, he 
will be also in deed when present. And later (xiii. 10), he speaks 
of his authority as especially exercised when personally present 
rather than through his letters. In the Epistle to the Galatians 
the burden of the apostle's rebuke is that the readers had 
departed from the gospel which he had orally preached. That 
to which he ascribes especial divine authority is the gospel 
which he had preached by word of mouth (i. 8, 11). Nowhere 
is the written word pronounced of superior authority to the 
preaching of the inspired apostles. It was through the oral 
preaching that the Christian Church was planted and nurtured. 
The written communications were comparatively few. The 
most of the apostles wrote either nothing, or at least nothing 
that has come down to us. As in all subsequent periods, so at 
the first, the gospel became the power of God unto salvation 
chiefly through the spoken word of life. 

But notwithstanding these concessions and qualifications, 
which seem to be required by a candid weighing of the facts, 
the doctrine of a special inspiration of the Biblical writers is not 
discredited, but rests on a strong foundation. The same Spirit 
who moved the prophets and apostles is indeed said to be im- 
parted to all Christians (Pcom. viii. 9 ; 1 John ii. 20) ; but if in 
the older times God can be said to have spoken "in divers 
manners" (Heb. i. 1), and if in apostolic times there were 
" diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit" (1 Cor. xii. 4), it 
certainly may be that there is a diversity as between the 
ordinary Christian and the chosen recorders of the word of 
salvation. 

The question, then, is : "Was the inspiration of the Biblical 
writers specifically different from that which all members of 

19 



290 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

the believing community enjoy ? The answer to the question 
is encumbered with grave difficulties. In the first place, in- 
spiration itself is in general difficult of definition ; it is there- 
fore difficult to distinguish specific kinds of inspiration, — to 
determine whether the differences are merely of kind or of de- 
gree. In the next place, the question is complicated with that 
of canonicity. If it were clear that special inspiration and 
canonicity had always been synonymous conceptions ; and if 
there had never been any wavering judgment as to the limits of 
the Canon, the case would be simpler. But the fact is that for 
a long time, with regard to both the Old and the New Testa- 
ment, doubts and divisions prevailed, so that certain books 
which finally obtained admission into the Canon (as, for ex- 
ample, Esther and Second Peter), were very extensively, and up 
to a late period, looked on w T ith suspicion as not worthy of 
being co-ordinated with the other sacred books ; while, on 
the other hand, certain books which were finally excluded 
from the Canon (such as the Old Testament Apocrypha and 
the Shepherd of Hermas) were very extensively used as of 
equal authority with the other sacred books. 1 And this fact 
seems to indicate that canonical inspiration was not sharply 
distinguished from ordinary inspiration. The same writer (for 
example, Origen) seems at one time to reject, at another to 
countenance, the canonical standing of certain books. Further- 
more, the reason why some writings became preserved and col- 
lected into a Canon, as of peculiar authority, while others were 
left out, is obscure, — especially as regards the Old Testament. 
Why, for example, should a book written by the prophet Isaiah 2 
have been excluded, while the anonymous Book of Esther was 
admitted ? What considerations finally prevailed to secure the 
admission of the Song of Solomon? As to the New Testa- 
ment, did the distinction that was made turn upon internal evi- 
dence of peculiar inspiration, or merely upon the evidence of 
apostolic authorship or endorsement ? Finally, we must take 
cognizance of the fact that the Christian Church is to this day 

1 See a good summary of the history of the process in Ladd, Doctrine 
of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. part ii. chap. ix. 

2 The "acts of Uzziah," vide 2 Chron. xxvi. 22. 



THE RECORD OF RE VELATION. — INSPIRATION. 291 

divided as to the recognition of certain of the Old Testament 
Apocrypha, the Council of Trent having formally co-ordinated 
them with the canonical books in general, whereas the Protestant 
Churches agree in giving them a subordinate position. The 
final fixing of the limits of the Canon seems, accordingly, to 
have been determined by a sort of chance. Not even the de- 
crees of Councils have been universally respected. And to this 
day, though no formal change in the Canon can now ever be 
expected to be generally agreed upon, yet individual Christians 
do not hesitate to exercise the same right of recognition or re- 
jection of the canonical authority of certain books which was 
exercised by Clement, Origen, Jerome, and Augustine. 

It is, therefore, very plausible when, as the result of a careful 
discussion of the question, Professor Ladd x comes to the con- 
clusion that " inspiration, as the subjective condition of Biblical 
revelation and the predicate of the Word of God, is specifically 
the same illumining, quickening, elevating, and purifying work of 
the Holy Spirit as that which goes on in the persons of the entire 
believing community." It is urged, in defense of this position, 
that "no theory of the inspiration of the Biblical authors has ever 
succeeded in defining the characteristics which separated them, 
as writers of Scripture, from other members of the believing 
community." 2 Further, it is said, to require that the truth of 
revelation " shall prove itself by an assumption as to a specific 
kind of divine influence through which the truth comes, is to 
require that it shall support itself upon that which is far weaker 
than itself." 3 [Moreover, respecting sacred history in particular, 
it is further urged that its authority " cannot be enhanced by 
any theory of the infallibility of the inspired authors of the 
history; for the evidence for the inspiration of the authors 
can never equal the evidence for the authenticity of their 
history." 4 

( These propositions in themselves may be admitted, and indeed 
have been substantially admitted in the foregoing. But it may 
be questioned whether they prove that for which they are used 
as proofs. For example, the impossibility of clearly defining 

1 Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. ii. p. 483. 2 Ibid., p. 490. 

8 Ibid., p. 492. 4 Ibid ^ p# 5 74# 



292 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

wherein Biblical inspiration differs from the ordinary work of 
the Holy Spirit does not prove that there is no such difference. 
It is equally impossible to define the exact nature of the in- 
spiration of the prophets ; but if we infer that there was there- 
fore no peculiar inspiration in their case, then we abandon all 
faith in a special revelation. 1 Again, as to the second point, it 
must be admitted that the truth of revelation cannot be proved 
by the assumption of a peculiar kind of divine influence on the 
mind of the Biblical writers. But this does not prove that 
there is no peculiar divine influence in the case. If the theory 
of the inspiration of the Bible were adopted simply as a means 
of establishing the fact of a divine revelation, and had no other 
ground, then the theory would indeed be not only futile, but 
foolish. The truths of revelation must, it is true, be practically 
established apart from any theory of the special inspiration of 
the Bible ; but for all that there may be valid reasons for 
believing that there was such inspiration. Again, when it is 
said that the authority of sacred history cannot be enhanced by 
any theory of the infallibility of the inspired authors, and in 
general that a peculiar kind of inspiration cannot constitute a 
ground of faith in the Bible " apart from the nature of the word 
itself," 2 we can assent to the proposition, but with a qualification. 
Faith in the Biblical history is not created by an antecedent 
faith in the peculiar inspiration of the historians, but it may be 
enhanced by such faith. This faith in the inspiration of the 
writers may not rightly be said to be produced " apart from the 
nature of the word ; " but it does not follow but that with the 
word itself the peculiar inspiration would be an additional 
ground of confidence. The case is similar to that respecting 
Christ himself. His claim that he was the Son of God, and 
that he enjoyed altogether peculiar communion with the Father, 
would not have constituted a sufficient ground of faith in his 
word, apart from the nature of the word itself. But in connec- 
tion with his word his extraordinary claims become an additional 
ground of confidence in him above and beyond what the words 

1 Professor Ladd distinctly assumes such a peculiar inspiration in the case 
of the prophets ; e. g. Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 124. 

2 Ibid., p. 492. 



THE RECORD OF REVELATION. — INSPIRATION. 293 

themselves would have commanded. The contents of the Bible 
are certainly not first trusted after and because the plenary 
inspiration of all the Biblical writers has been proved. The 
proof of this itself requires a very large degree of antecedent 
faith in those same contents. But such faith once existing may 
nevertheless be strengthened by an argument (if a sound one) 
which goes to show that the authors of the Biblical books 
enjoyed a peculiar kind of divine inspiration. A general faith 
in the authenticity of a Biblical narrative may be gained as one 
gains faith in any other historical narrative. But if one finds 
reason, in addition to this, to think that the authors of the 
Bible had exceptional help imparted to them, why, then the 
faith in their general veracity may properly become a faith in 
their special and peculiar veracity. 

What, then, are the reasons for holding that the sacred 
writers enjoyed an inspiration specifically different from that 
of ordinary believers ? 

i. The first reason is an a priori one. That a peculiar guid- 
ance was imparted to the sacred writers is made probable by 
the very fact that it was their part to put into permanent form 
the record of a divine revelation. It would seem to be in- 
trinsically desirable that Scriptures which were to serve as the 
authoritative record of the divine communications should at the 
outset have been specially secured from errors and follies, from 
overstatements aud understatements, from meagreness and ex- 
cess, — in short, from whatever would tend to give an inadequate 
or misleading impression of the contents of the divine word. 
If there was occasion for a supernatural communication at all, 
was there not likewise, and for the same reason, occasion for 
special precaution against an erroneous report of the commu- 
nication ? 1 

This argument is just the reverse of the one we have above 
rejected. Not the revelation is inferred from the inspiration, 
but vice versa, the inspiration is inferred from the revelation. 
The argument is of course not demonstrative. It does not 
follow, because one thinks there was need of supernatural 
guidance, that therefore there was such guidance. But it is 
1 Cf. Lee, The Inspiration of Holy Scripture, p. 254. 



294 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

a fact of no small moment that there is an instinctive 
tendency to assume the need and the fact of it. This im- 
pulse of the mind is itself an argument; it creates at least 
a strong presumption in favor of the hypothesis that the 
writers of the Scriptures were favored with more than ordinary 
illumination. 

With regard to certain parts of the Scriptures this presumption 
is peculiarly strong. We refer to those books which were 
written by the direct recipients of divine revelations. While 
we have no sufficient reason for assuming that the prophets 
and apostles were more inspired when writing than when 
officially speaking, we certainly have no good reason to suppose 
that they were less inspired, or not at all specially inspired, 
when writing. It is with reference to the historical books 
only that doubt can plausibly be entertained. As to the most 
of the Old Testament histories we know nothing about their 
authors. As to those of the New Testament, we know that 
three of them, at least, were written by men whom we have 
no reason to regard as apostolically inspired men. What is 
the proof that, just in the composition of these books, Mark 
and Luke received an inspiration which they had at no other 
time ? The answer is that there was, so far as any one can 
see, as much need of supernatural guidance in the preparation 
of the history of Christ's life and of the establishment of the 
Christian Church as there was in the writing of the Apostolical 
Epistles. If we were obliged to make a distinction, we should 
be inclined to decide that the portraiture of the character, 
words, and works of Jesus Christ was of more vital importance 
to the succeeding generations of Christians than the meditations 
and exhortations which were the outgrowths of that history. 
The burden of proof certainly rests on one who would assert 
that Paul's Epistles are supernaturally inspired, but that Luke's 
histories are not ; or that Matthew's Gospel is inspired, and 
Mark's uninspired. Such a conclusion would imply that 
inspired and uninspired histories became mixed together and 
made of practically equal authority in the estimation of the 
Christian Church. The only alternative of one who denies 
the specific peculiarity of Biblical inspiration must be that the 



THE EECOKD OF KEVELATION. — INSPIRATION. 295 

inspiration of the apostles was not specifically different from 
that of other Christians. 1 

But we are now dealing only with a general presumption. 
It is very certain that, even though the Biblical writers may 
not have been aware that their writings were to be preserved as 
the authoritative record of the divine message for all genera- 
tions, yet such was to be the fact. And God must have known 
what the fact was to be. And if there is reason to believe that 
he vouchsafed special illumination to prophets whose prophecies 
never went farther than to their contemporaries, there would 
seem to be at least equal reason why he should have given 
special aid to those who were to write down the divine revela- 
tions as a guide for all ages. 

ii. Another consideration of no little weight is the fact that 
the Scriptures always have been regarded and treated by the 
great majority of the Christian world as inspired in an altogether 
peculiar sense. It is true that this is not a decisive argument. 
An error may become general and maintain itself persistently. 
The general opinion of the Papal Church, that the Pope is in- 
fallible, can hardly be taken as a proof of the correctness of the 
opinion. Moreover, exaggerated and even fantastic notions con- 
cerning Biblical inspiration have sometimes had wide and al- 
most universal currency. The vagaries of the allegorical view 
of Scripture, and the extravagances of the doctrine of verbal 
inspiration, though they have sometimes been shared by nearly 
all Christians, cannot for that reason be regarded as justifiable. 

Nevertheless these very extravagances indicate the strength 

1 So Professor Ladd, Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 191. But be 
goes on to emphasize the fact that the Apostles were better fitted than others 
for the work of writing as well as preaching, ( 1) because called and commis- 
sioned directly by Jesus, (2) because they " had a more abundant endowment 
of the same revelation and inspiration which belonged to Christians in general" 
(p. 192). Elsewhere, however, in speaking of apostolic inspiration, he says 
(p. 85, 86), " The effect of this inspiration is a special and supernatural fitness 
for their work of receiviug men and training them in the Church of Christ." 
This seems to be an affirmation of all that need be claimed for apostolic in- 
spiration, especially as it is made to cover the scriptural activity of the apostles 
also (p. 79). A special and supernatural fitness for their work must imply an 
iuspiration specifically different from that of ordinary Christians. 



296 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

of the underlying conviction that the Scriptures possess an alto- 
gether exceptional value and authority. And this general con- 
viction has always expressed itself in the doctrine that the 
Bible was written under the special guidance of the Holy Spirit. 
That such a doctrine could become so wide-spread and deep- 
seated, is a significant fact. It must have had some foundation. 
The very existence of such a belief furnishes a presumptive ar- 
gument in favor of an essential truth as lying at the basis of it. 
Such a belief is not, it is true, to be blindly accepted as too 
sacred to be critically tested. No doctrine of inspiration, as has 
often been said, can be a true doctrine which is at war with 
facts. If a scientific examination of the Bible can demonstrate 
that the common notion respecting it is radically erroneous, that 
notion must be abandoned, however hard or even dangerous 
the abandonment may seem to be. But such an examination 
must respect the traditional opinion, and seek to discover the 
truth which it contains, even though error may be found mixed 
with it. For one of the facts which a scientific investigation 
must take cognizance of is this wide-spread, persistent notion 
respecting the inspiration of the Bible. 

iii. Starting with these presumptions, we next notice the 
testimony of the Bible itself concerning Biblical inspiration. 

Eespecting this testimony it hardly needs to be observed that 
we cannot make the force of it depend on the assumption that 
the testimony itself is inspired. This would be assuming the 
thing which is to be proved. If a Biblical writer asserts that 
the Bible in general is an inspired book, his assertion cannot be 
accepted as true on the ground that he was divinely inspired to 
say so. 'Not can a writer's assertion of his own inspiration 
be regarded as proof positive that he was inspired. Such asser- 
tions, if credible at all, are credible for the reason that the 
writers, aside from any presupposition as to their peculiar inspi- 
ration, are sincere, sensible, and godly men, and that therefore 
their testimony or their judgment on this point is worthy of 
credit. 

More especially, it should be observed that the testimony of 
Jesus Christ on this point is of peculiar worth and authority. 
We assume him now to have been the inspired Eevealer of 



THE RECORD OF REVELATIOX. — Ds SPIRATIOX. 297 

the divine character and purposes, the authoritative expounder 
of religious truth. If he declared the Old Testament to he 
an inspired hook, his declaration must he accepted as true. On 
this point there can he no concession. "Whatever may he the 
fact respecting the limitations of the incarnate Son, it is certain 
that concerning the matter in question he knew more than any 
modern critic. He who was commissioned to make a final and 
perfect revelation of God's truth cannot be called in question 
in his utterances concerning the very thing which it was his 
business to proclaim. Even if it should be conceded that he 
was not exempt from all the erroneous notions of his age re- 
specting matters lying outside of the province of a religious 
dispensation, it cannot be conceded that he could have been in 
error respecting matters which do emphatically concern such 
a dispensation. Coming professedly to complete a revelation 
previously given, he must, if not a veritable impostor, have 
been competent to pass judgment on that previous revelation. 
If he pronounced it, as he did, to be in some respects deficient 
and in need of supplementation, his assertion is to be implicitly 
trusted. And for the same reason, if he declared the record of 
that revelation to be inspired of God, we cannot question his 
declaration without impugning his authority in general. 

It may, however, be alleged that Christ nowhere explicitly 
does assert the peculiar inspiration of the Old Testament 
writers. Strictly speaking, this is true; and it is also true 
that, with a single exception, none of the Biblical writers in 
express terms makes any such affirmation. But it is neverthe- 
less certain that the notion of such an inspiration was cher- 
ished by the New Testament writers, and that it is virtually, 
even if not expressly, conveyed by them. The single passage 
just alluded to (2 Tim. iii. 16), being a solitary one, would not 
deserve the importance generally attached to it, were not its des- 
ignation of the Scriptures as inspired of God substantially, though 
not in form, borne out by the general drift of the Xew Testament 
references to the Old. The doubt about the correct translation 
of the verse does not materially modify the force of its testi- 
mony as to the point in question. If we assume that the 
epithet " inspired of God " is to be taken as belonging to the 



298 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

subject (according to the Eevised Version), still the verse virtu- 
ally predicates inspiration, in an emphatic sense, of the Old 
Testament as a whole. The apostle has (ver. 15) just spoken 
of "the sacred writings" (of course, the Old Testament in 
general) as " able to make wise unto salvation." And now he 
adds, "Every Scripture inspired of God is also profitable for 
teaching," etc. If the Old Testament, as a whole, is declared to 
be able to do the greater thing, — make wise unto salvation, — 
it would be inconceivable that Paul could now mean to say 
that the lesser thing — teaching, reproving, correcting, and in- 
structing — could be done only by the inspired parts of the 
Old Testament. Timothy had certainly never been taught 
to make any such discrimination; and Paul, if he meant to 
imply any, leaves Timothy and us in the dark as to where the 
line is to be drawn. If OeoirvevarTos grammatically belongs to 
the subject, then the meaning must evidently be : " Every part 
of Scripture, being inspired of God, is also profitable," etc. 1 Or 
if any discrimination is implied, it must be one between the 
Old Testament and other (uninspired) writings. 2 

1 So Origen, in Lib rum Jesu, Horn, xix : naaa ypacpfj OeoTrveva-ros ovaa 
oifeXifios ion. Cf. Beck, Erklarung der zwei Brief e Pauli an Timotheus, in 
loc, and Wace (in Speaker's Commentary) in loc. The " also " likewise best 
accords with this interpretation. 

2 Or possibly, though much less probably, the use of irao-a ypacpt) without the 
article may intimate that Paul here means to include, with the Old Testament 
Scriptures (spoken of in ver. 15 as ra Upa ypdppara), also the New Testa- 
ment Scriptures, a part of which had already been written. So Mosheim, Er- 
klarung der beyden Briefe des Apostels Pauli an den Timotheum, in loc. In 
either case it cannot be Paul's intention to imply that the Scriptures were 
made up of inspired and uninspired writings, though some, as, e. g., Mar- 
tineau (The Rationale of Religious Enquiry, London, 1836, p. 200), so inter- 
pret the apostle. Professor Ladd (Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 183) 
also appears, though obscurely, to intimate that such a distinction is suggested. 
He says : " All Scripture that is theopneustic is also morally profitable ; and 
although it is not the intent of the writer to suggest the possibility of denying 
theopneusty to any Scripture whatever, neither is it his intent to imply such 
theopneusty of any such Scripture as is not also morally profitable. Whether 
each book and passage in the Upa ypdfxp.ara is, taken in detail, to be con- 
sidered as theopneustic and also profitable for the purposes specified, the 
writer does not pronounce." The meaning of this is not altogether clear. 
The apodosis seems hardly to consist with the protasis. If it is true that the 



THE RECORD OF RE VELATION. — INSPIRATION. 299 

However the verse may be translated, it affirms, either di- 
rectly or indirectly, the inspiration of the Old Testament. As 
to the meaning of OeoirvevvTos there is not, and cannot be, any 
material difference of opinion. 1 The chief difference relates 

sacred writer does not intend to imply tlieopneusty " of any such Scripture as 
is not morally profitable," then it must be that he intends to imply that such 
Scripture is not theopneustic. He certainly cannot mean to imply that it 
is neither one thing nor the other. If Paul regarded any part of Scrip- 
ture as not morally profitable, he must, by fair implication (according to Pro- 
fessor Ladd), have regarded it as not theopneustic. The only way of escape 
from this alternative would be to ascribe to the apostle the agnostic attitude of 
not determining whether any Scripture is unprofitable or not. But even this 
would not accomplish the purpose ; for such a non-committal position would 
at least still " suggest the possibility of denying tlieopneusty" to some parts 
of Scripture. Indeed it is impossible to understand what reason (if Professor 
Ladd's interpretation is correct) Paul could have had for using the term 
fconvevo-Tos at all, unless he did mean to imply that some of the Old Tes- 
tament was not inspired, and hence not morally profitable. But such a con- 
struction of the apostle's language would conflict with the almost unanimous 
view of exegetes, whichever translation they adopt. Thus, Ellicott (Pastoral 
Epistles, in loc.) and Huther (in Meyer's Comm. in loc), though agreeing 
with Professor Ladd as regards the grammatical construction, find no impli- 
cation of a distinction between inspired and uninspired Scripture. The latter 
says : " There was uo reason for directing attention to the fact that the whole 
of Scripture is deoTrvevcrros. There was no doubt on this point (viz., that the 
whole of Scripture, and not a part of it, was inspired of God), but on the point 
whether the Scriptures as deonvevoToi are also . . . a><£e'Ai/iot." The trans- 
lation preferred by Ellicott, Huther, and others (followed by the Revised 
Version) takes the universal inspiration for granted ; the other asserts it. As 
to the question, which translation is to be preferred, though the weight of 
scholarly opinion is doubtless against the rendering of the Authorized Version, 
the authorities are still, and probably always will be, divided. Against the 
rendering of the Revised Version are such scholars as Chrysostom, Calvin, 
DeWette, TViesinger, Conybeare, Fairbairn, Holrzmann, and likewise Rothe 
(Zur Dogmatik, p. 181), whom Professor Ladd {Ibid.) seems to quote as if on 
the other side. 

1 The chief lexical difference relates to the question, whether it is to be 
understood passively — " breathed by God " — or actively — " God-breathing," 
i. e., breathing a divine spirit. The latter is defended by Cremer, Article In- 
spiration in Herzog and Plitt's Realencyclopddie, and in his Biblisch-theo- 
logisches Lexicon, sub voc. {vide Supplement to the Eng. ed.), though the other 
definition was given in the first and second editions. Practically, the differ- 
ence is not very great ; only the theory of verbal inspiration may be better 
defended, if the first definition is adopted. Defined in the second way, the 



300 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

rather to the object and the degree of the inspiration : whether 
it is the writings., or the writers, that are inspired ; and whether 
the inspiration secures absolute infallibility or not. From the 
word itself, however, as Ellicott, 1 Warington, 2 and others 
properly insist, we cannot infer a verbal inspiration such as 
the older theologians taught ; nor can we directly draw any in- 
ference from it as to the degree of the inspiration. But the 
passage does affirm the universal inspiration of the Old 
Testament. 

Although the epithet " inspired of God " is found only this 
once, the notion conveyed by it is found in abundance. The 
general manner in which the New Testament writers refer to 
the Old corresponds perfectly with the declaration of the 
verse we have been considering. 

(1) The very names by which the Old Testament is designated 
are significant of the peculiar dignity accorded to it. Its books 
are called " The Scriptures," (or collectively) " The Scripture." 3 
And these writings, thus distinguished from and above all 
others, are everywhere spoken of as the depository of the 
divine will, as the immutable word, and as the arbiter of truth. 
Those Scriptures, it was held, " must be fulfilled " (Mark xiv. 49 ; 
Acts i. 16 ; John x. 35); the apostles reasoned from them (Acts 
xvii. 2); the Scriptures were to be carefully searched, as the 
source of religious truth (John v. 39 ; Acts xvii. 11). 

(2) The language of the Old Testament is often quoted as 
the language of God or of the Holy Ghost, even when in the 
original the words are not directly attributed to God. So 
especially in the Epistle to the Hebrews ; for example, i. 6, 7, 
ii. 12, iii. 7, iv. 3, 4, v. 6, x. 5, 15 ; but also in Eom. xv. 10 ; 
Eph. iv. 8. 

(3) The emphasis which is laid upon the word of revelation 
as written is significant. Jesus met the tempter by quoting to 

phrase implies the activity of the divine Spirit in inspiring the writers ; denned 
in the first way, it more directly asserts it. Thayer's Grimm's New Testament 
Lexicon gives the passive sense. 

1 Pastoral Epistles, in loc. 2 Inspiration of Scripture, p. 48. 

8 E. g., Matt. xxi. 42, xxii. 29 ; Mark xiv. 49 ; Luke xxiv. 27, 32, 45 ; John 
v. 39 ; Acts xviii. 24 ; Rom. xv. 4. 



THE RECORD OF RE VELATION. — INSPIRATION. 301 

him that which was written (Matt. iv. 4, 7, 10). It is insisted 
that the things which are written must be fulfilled (Luke xviii. 
31, xxi. 22, xxiv. 44). The Scriptures are said to have been 
written for the instruction, warning, and comfort of those that 
were to come after (Eom. iv. 23, xv. 4; 1 Cor. ix. 10, x. II). 3 
Paul frequently personifies the Scripture, as when he says (Gal. 
iii. 8), " The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the 
Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand unto Abra- 
ham." And continually, in instances too numerous to adduce, 
appeal is made to the Scriptures, as the rule of faith and conduct, 
in the use of the formula, " it is written," or " as it is written " 
(as, for example, Matt. xxi. 13; John vi. 31, 45; Acts xv. 15; 
Eom. i. 17, iii. 4, x. 15 ; 1 Cor. xv. 45). Such forms of expression 
indicate not merely that special authority was attached to 
Moses and the prophets, as men of God, not merely that the 
Old Testament economy in general was held to be of divine 
institution, not merely that certain individuals were inspired ; 
but that the Old Testament Scriptures, as they were known to 
the New Testament writers and to Christ himself, were re- 
garded as of special sacredness and authority — as divinely 
inspired. What Peter expressly asserted as to the inspiration 
of the prophets (1 Pet. i. 10, 11 ; 2 Pet. i. 21) is implicitly as- 
serted of the Scriptures in general ; for they are all referred to 
in the same way. 

(4) The typical significance which Christ and his disciples 
found in the Old Testament indicates that they regarded it as 
divinely and peculiarly inspired. Even if one should disagree 
with them in their interpretation, the argument is not affected. 
The fact that they found a wealth of typical meaning in what 
might seem to be of slight significance indicates that they con- 
ceived the Scriptures to be in a peculiar sense inspired of God. 
The more trivial and far-fetched these applications of the Old 
Testament writings may seem to be, the more cogently may we 
conclude that the writers conceived the divine mind to have 
been peculiarly concerned in determining the form and the 
sense of the Scriptures. 2 

1 Cf. John ii. 22, xx. 9 ; Acts viii. 32 ; Rom. iv. 3 ; 1 Pet. ii. 6. 

2 On this see Bannerman, Inspiration, pp. 311 sqq. 



302 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

These several points might be expanded; but it is hardly 
necessary. What Paul expressed by that general characteriza- 
tion of the Old Testament as inspired of God, is borne out by 
the general manner in which those Scriptures are referred to in 
the New Testament. Eothe, who assumes the liberty to disagree 
with the New Testament writers in this respect, is yet emphatic 
in asserting that they held a very extreme doctrine of verbal 
inspiration. These authors, he says, " regard the words of the 
Old Testament as immediate words of God, and introduce them 
expressly as such, even those which are by no means reported 
as direct utterances of God." 1 

When Eothe, however, undertakes to find a sharp distinction 
between Christ and his disciples as regards the mode in which 
they view the Old Testament, we must pronounce the attempt 
a total failure. He finds only two occasions on which Christ 
appears to endorse the notion of the special inspiration of the 
written word. These are Matt. v. 18 (cf. Luke xvi. 17) and 
xxii. 43 (cf. Mark xii. 36). In the first, he says, Christ refers, 
not to the Mosaic codex of laws, but to the law, and therefore 
cannot mean to lay stress on the minutiae of the written form. 
As to the second, he argues that our Saviour's language only 
affirms that David was inspired in composing Ps. ex., but not 
that he was inspired in writing it. But these are subtleties 
that carry with them their own condemnation. Eothe's case is 
made only the worse, when he undertakes to show that Jesus 
directly undertook to combat the current conception of the Old 
Testament, and quotes as proof Matt. xxii. 29 (cf. Mark xii. 24), 
where Christ says that the Jews did not understand the Scrip- 
tures, and John v. 39, where, he asserts, Christ even affirms it 
to be a mere conceit on the part of the Jews to suppose that 
they could find eternal life in a book. As to the latter passage, 
it is sufficient to say that this interpretation of it is itself a con- 
ceit without foundation. 2 In both this and the other passage 
Jesus simply tells the Jews that, much as they professed to 

1 Zur Bogmatik, pp. 180 sg. 

2 All bough countenanced by some others, as Weiss, Der Johanneische 
Lehrbegnff, p. 106, and Hilgenfeld, Das Eoangelium und die Briefs Johannis, 
p. 213. 



THE RECORD OF REVELATION. — INSPIRATION. 303 

reverence the Scriptures, they did not really understand them. 
They searched the Scriptures, he said, in order to find in them 
eternal life ; and so they might, if they only found him there 
testified of ; for he would give them life (verse 40). The fault 
was not that they thought too much of the Scriptures, but that 
the word did not abide in them (verse 38), — that, though trust- 
ing in Moses, they yet did not believe him (verses 46, 47). It is 
past comprehension how these charges, that the Jews had failed 
to understand the Scriptures, in any way imply that the Scriptures 
were not divinely inspired. On the contrary, the clear implica- 
tion is that, if the Old Testament is only rightly understood, it 
will lead to eternal life. If there were anywhere any plain in- 
timation from Jesus that he repudiated the doctrine of inspira- 
tion, the case would be different. But the word used (So/ceco), 
like the English "think," cannot be understood to denote an 
erroneous opinion, unless there is some other evidence that this 
is the case than the mere use of the word. And everywhere 
Jesus is represented as speaking with the utmost reverence of 
the Jewish Scriptures ; l nowhere does he speak of them, or any 
part of them, slightingly. It may, indeed, be urged that he em- 
phasizes the spirit of the Scriptures, as contrasted with the 
letter ; and in this respect he undoubtedly did differ from his 
Pharisaic and superstitious countrymen. But we are now 
comparing him, not with the unbelieving Jews, but with the 
enlightened and believing apostles; and we find them likewise 
exalting the spirit above the letter (2 Cor. iii. 6). In short, it 
is only a misplaced subtlety, or a predetermination to discover a 
difference, which can find that Christ's general attitude towards 
the Hebrew Scriptures is essentially different from that of the 
New Testament writers. Though the phrase "inspired of God" 
is only once applied to the Old Testament, the notion expressed 
by it is found throughout the New Testament, no less in the 
quoted utterances of Christ than in the independent declarations 
of the apostles. 

He, therefore, who seeks, as Eothe does, to plant himself on 
the authority of Christ, as distinguished from that of the New 

1 See, e. g. } Matt. xxi. 42, xxvi. 54, 56; Luke xvi. 29, 31, xxiv. 27; John 
x. 35. 



304 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

Testament writers, in defining the doctrine of the inspiration of 
the Old Testament, has the feeblest kind of foothold. There is 
a strong presumption that the apostles and historians who por- 
tray the life, work, and doctrine of Jesus intend not only to 
report what he said and did, but also to accept his views and 
carry them out. If they held different opinions from his re- 
specting the Old Testament, and were conscious of that difference, 
then they were consciously disloyal to the Master whom they 
professed implicitly to follow. If they disagreed with him un- 
consciously, then the necessary conclusion seems to be that 
though they were intelligent enough to report Christ's words 
accurately, yet they were not intelligent enough to see wherein 
those words were in conflict with their own sentiments. Such 
a phenomenon is perhaps conceivable : but he who assumes it 
to be a fact can have but little respect for the authority of 
writers who are so conspicuously deficient in intellectual and 
spiritual clearness of apprehension. At all events, before we 
can accept such a theory, we must have cogent proof of it. And 
when we find that the alleged proof, as soon as tested, entirely 
collapses, we may safely dismiss the theory which it is employed 
to support. 

The fact stands fast, therefore, that both Christ and his dis- 
ciples ascribed to the Old Testament as a whole the character 
of a divinely inspired book. The book was then well defined 
in its form and extent. It was a collection of various writings, 
but recognized as being essentially a unit, and as embodying the 
substance of God's revelation of himself to the Jewish people. 

The question of the inspiration of the New Testament is in 
some respects a distinct one. We still have, and even in a 
heightened form, the arguments from the presumptive need of 
supernatural aid on the part of the writers, and from the general 
judgment of Christendom. But we cannot quote Christ as 
affirming the inspiration of a book which, when he lived, was 
not yet written. We can only draw inferences from what the 
New Testament writers say of themselves. 

We shall look in vain, if we expect to find any general asser- 
tion covering the whole New Testament Canon. This Canon 
was not formed ; the writings of the apostles had not been col- 



THE RECORD OF REVELATION. — INSPIRATION. 305 

lected together. It is not probable that in any case these 
writers wrote with the distinct consciousness that their writings 
were to become co-ordinate with the Old Testament as sacred 
Scripture, or that these writings were at once regarded and 
treated as such by others. The very fact that in 2 Pet. iii. 15, 
16 the Epistles of Paul are spoken of as being a part of the 
" Scriptures," constitutes one reason for doubting the genuine- 
ness of the Epistle. If the declaration had been more compre- 
hensive, embracing all the books now known as the New 
Testament, especially if they had been designated by a compre- 
hensive title, the ground for suspicion would have been still 
greater. All that we can naturally look for is individual testi- 
mony as to individual inspiration, or general statements about 
apostolic inspiration, but without reference to books already 
written. 

These testimonies are of three kinds : (1) the promises given 
by Christ of the special help of the Holy Spirit to the apostles 
in their apostolic work; 1 (2) the historical account of the fulfil- 
ment of these promises ; 2 and (3) the direct claims made by the 
apostles that they have this promised help. 3 We assume the 
trustworthiness of these statements, but refrain from a particu- 
lar analysis and examination of the several passages. This 
work has been often done ; and the general significance of the 
testimonies lies on the surface. There are, however, some con- 
siderations which may seem to indicate that these passages do 
not prove a specifically peculiar inspiration of the New Testa- 
ment writers. 

(a) Both the promises and the claims have respect to the 
general apostolic commission, and not particularly to the apos- 
tles as writers. This is true ; but the general commission surely 

1 Here belong Matt. x. 19, 20, xxviii. 20; Mark xiii. 11 ; Luke xii. 11, 12, 
xsi. 14, 15, xxiv. 49 ; John xiv. 16-18, 26, xv. 26, 27, xvi. 12-15, xx. 22, 23. 

2 Particularly, Acts ii. 4, iv. 31, xiii. 2-4, xvi. 6, 7. 

8 Kg., Acts xv. 23 ; 1 Cor. ii. 10-16, xiv. 37; 2 Cor. x. 8-11, xii. 9, 12, 
xiii. 2, 3; Gal. i. 9-12, 15, 16; Eph. iii. 1-7; 1 Thess. ii. 13, iv. 1, 2, 15; 
2 Thess. ii. 13-15 ; 1 Pet. i. 10-12 ; 2 Pet. iii. 2 ; 1 John i. 1-3 ; Rev. i. 1-3. 
xxii. 6, 7. To which may be added Paul's general claims of apostolic power, 
as Rom. i. 1 ; 1 Cor. i. 1, ix. 1, xv. 8-10 ; 2 Cor. xi. 5 ; Gal. i. 1, ii. 6-9 ; 
Eph. i. 1 ; Col. i. 1 ; 1 Tim. i. 1 ; Tit. i. 1-3. 

20 



306 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

may be assumed to cover the several forms which the apostolic 
functions assumed. And though we may not find any promise 
or claim of peculiar aid as enjoyed by the apostles in writing, 
quite as little can we reasonably assume that the general prom- 
ise failed them when they were discharging this important duty. 
Moreover Paul, in 2 Thess. ii. 15, plainly co-ordinates his oral 
and scriptural injunctions, and the Epistle to the Galatians was 
manifestly written with the consciousness that the readers were 
to recognize in these written words the full inspiration and 
apostolic authority of the writer. It is not necessary to decide 
whether the special inspiration of the apostles was a general 
and uniform one, or was more or less occasional, being imparted 
when particularly needed. We find that sometimes there is a 
special mention of their being moved by the Holy Ghost, 1 as if 
ordinarily they were less under his power. Even if it can be 
shown that the inspiration was of this intermittent sort, yet it 
must be insisted that the apostles never needed it more than 
when engaged in writing epistles and histories which were to 
be perpetual sources of instruction to the Christian Church. If, 
on the other hand, we hold the inspiration to have been a con- 
stant charism of the apostles, then as a matter of course it must 
have controlled them when writing. On the whole, then, this 
objection is of slight account. 

(b) It may be said that the promises of special help and 
illumination made to the apostles are not to be understood as 
limited to them, but rather as applicable to all believers. Christ 
in his high-priestly prayer prayed not merely for the apostles, 
but for all who should believe on him through their word. 2 
The Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost fell not only on the 
apostles, but on all the Christians who were assembled with 
them. 3 Eepeatedly the Spirit is said not merely to have filled 
or directed such leading men as Stephen (Acts vi. 5, vii. 55) and 
Philip (viii. 29), but to have fallen upon the multitudes of 
believers (viii. 17, x. 44, xv. 8, xix. 6). The Christian life is 
uniformly described as a life the marked characteristic of which 

1 E. g. y Acts iv. 8, xiii. 9, xvi. 6, 7. 

2 John xvii. 20. 

8 Acts ii. 1-4 ; cf. verses 14, 15. 



THE EECOED OF REVELATION. — INSPIRATION. 307 

is the indwelling and influence of the Spirit. 1 By what right, 
then, it may be asked, can the inspiration of the apostles be 
pronounced specifically different from that of the whole com- 
munity of believers ? 

This is an objection of decidedly greater weight than the one 
previously mentioned, and requires careful consideration. We 
observe with regard to it : 

(1) So far as the Christian life in general is a life controlled 
by the Holy Spirit, of course it must be granted that both the 
apostles and ordinary Christians alike shared the gift. This 
gift, however, is often described according to the ideal Christian 
life, some Christians being represented as not possessing the 
Spirit, or at least scarcely deserving to be called spiritual. 
Especially noteworthy is the manner in which Paul character- 
izes the Corinthians as not spiritual, but carnal (1 Cor. hi. 1-3), 
though shortly afterwards he says, " Know ye not that ye are a 
temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? " (iii 
16). So he says to the Galatians, " Having begun in the Spirit, 
are ye now perfected in the flesh ? " (Gal. hi. 3) ; and later (vi. 1) 
he intimates that the church is made up of the " spiritual " and 
those who are not spiritual This spirituality was conceived, 
then, as varying in degree; and though Paul sometimes speaks 
as though some were already " perfect " (1 Cor. ii. 6 ; Phil. iii. 15), 
yet he disclaims even for himself having been made perfect 
(Phil. iii. 12), and thj perfection spoken of evidently either is 
meant in a relative sense, or (as, for example, 1 Cor. xiii. 10 ; 
Eph. iv. 13 ; Col. i. 28) is conceived as an unrealized ideal. In 
this general sense, as Christians, needing the sanctifying power 
of the Holy Ghost (Tit. iii. 5), both apostles and others stood on 
common ground, though the apostles may be presumed to have 
excelled most, or all, others in their spiritual attainments. All 
this, however, does not settle the question whether the apostles 
may not have had peculiar gifts of the Spirit, whereby they 
were distinguished from other Christians. We observe, therefore, 
further : 

1 E.g., Rom. v. 5, viii. 1-5,9-14 ; 1 Cor. vi. 19, xii. 3-13 ; Gal. iii. 2, v. 16 ; 
Eph. i. 13, iv. 30, v. 18; 1 Thess. iv. 8 ; 2 Thess. ii. 
iv. 14 ; 1 John iii. 24. 



308 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

(2) The objection, if pressed, proves too much ; for it may 
be carried to the extreme of obliterating all essential distinction 
between Christ himself and his followers. There is scarcely 
any distinction of the Eedeemer which cannot be paralleled by 
what is predicated in the New Testament of the redeemed. Is 
he the Son of God ? But so are Christians " sons of God " 
(1 John iii. 1, 2 ; Gal. iv. 5-7). Is he "the heir of all things " 
(Heb. i. 2) ? But so are Christians " heirs of God, and joint- 
heirs with Christ" (Eom. viii. 17; Gal. iv. 7). Is he a King 
and a Priest? But so are Christians "a royal priesthood," 
" kings and priests unto God " (1 Pet. ii. 9 ; Eev. i. 6). Is he 
to be the Judge of the world ? But so we read that " the 
saints shall judge the world" (1 Cor. vi. 2). Is he one with 
God, the possessor of divine glory ? But so it is said to be the 
destiny of Christians to be " partakers of the divine nature " 
(2 Pet. i. 4) ; and Christ says of his disciples, " The glory which 
thou hast given me I have given unto them " (John xvii. 22). 
Did Christ suffer for the sake of the elect ? But Christians are 
said to be partakers of his sufferings (2 Cor. i. 5, 7 ; Phil. iii. 10), 
and even to fill up that which is lacking in his afflictions for 
the sake of the Church (Col. i. 24). 

Now it is hardly necessary to enter minutely into an exam- 
ination of these and other such representations, and show that 
after all the general impression left by the New Testament 
teaching is that Christ is unapproachably superior to all other 
men. That he is thus unique is made very obvious even to a 
careless reader. And similarly, although the apostles and other 
Christians are said to share common gifts, it is still obvious 
that there was a distinction accorded to the apostles. While 
some of the promises made to them may fairly be made to ex- 
tend to all of Christ's disciples, others are meant especially for 
the apostles (for example, John xiv. 26, xx. 23 ; Matt, xviii. 
18). He also imparted to them the power to cure diseases 
(Matt. x. 1). They were to be in an emphatic sense the leaders 
and pillars in establishing the Church of Christ on earth (Matt, 
xxviii. 19, 20 ; Luke xxiv. 47-49 ; John xxi. 15-17, xx. 21 : Acts 
i. 8). He had left them with no written instructions. They 
were the sole media of the communication to the world of his 



THE RECORD OF RE VELATION. — INSPIRATION. 309 

everlasting gospel. They were to speak and act with authority. 
And so in fact they did. On the day of Pentecost and after- 
wards they assumed the attitude of commissioned leaders and 
teachers (Acts ii. 14 sqq., iv. 13). When the disciples made com- 
mon stock of their possessions, the apostles were made the guar- 
dians of it (Acts iv. 35). They gave direction concerning the 
appointment of assistants in the management of the external 
duties of the church (vi 1-4). They assumed authority to 
settle disputed questions concerning doctrine and practice (xv. 
1-29). Paul, who was not one of the original apostles, is 
especially emphatic in insisting upon the peculiar prerogatives 
of the apostles (Eom. xi. 13 ; 1 Cor. ix. 1, xii. 28 ; 2 Cor. xii. 
11, 12; Eph. ii. 20, iv. 11) and upon his co-equality with the 
others (2 Cor. xi. 5 ; Gal. i. 1, ii. 6). It was to him a distinct 
and peculiarly responsible office; and in all his letters he 
speaks as one having authority. The distinction was not 
merely that the apostles had been eye-witnesses of Jesus' works 
and hearers of his words. Others besides them had had this 
privilege, and Paul had not had it. When after the defection 
of Judas the apostles chose Matthias to take his place, they 
acted in the consciousness that the apostolic office was one 
which was invested with a peculiar dignity and responsibility. 
This being so, that which was common to the apostles and 
their fellow-Christians cannot be adduced as proof that there 
was nothing peculiar to the apostles. And as their office was 
peculiar, so their endowments were peculiar also. Though there 
was but one Spirit, there were diversities of gifts (1 Cor. xii. 4) ; 
"and he gave some to be apostles " (Eph. iv. 11 ; 1 Cor. xii. 28). 
There were spiritual powers which could be recognized as " the 
signs of an apostle " (2 Cor. xii. 12). The principal work of the 
apostles was to teach and preach authoritatively the gospel of 
Christ (Matt, xxviii. 19, 20 ; Acts vi. 4, xx. 24 ; 1 Cor. i. 17, xv. 
1 ; Gal. i. 8, 9, 11, 12). And this gospel was set forth not only 
by oral preaching, but in written histories and homilies. It was 
committed to the apostles so to set it forth that it might safely 
serve for all coming ages as a "foundation" on which others 
might build (Eph. ii. 20 ; 1 Cor. iii. 10-12). That they might 
do this, they had a special revelation from the Spirit of God 



310 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

(1 Cor. ii. 6-13), and were so sure of the authoritativeness of 
their teaching that they could anathematize any who should 
dare to preach a different gospel (Gal. i. 8, 9). 

(c) A further difficulty may be raised on the ground that not 
all of the books of the New Testament were written by apostles. 
If special inspiration is argued on the ground of apostolical 
authorship, what shall be said of the Gospels of Mark and Luke, 
the Book of Acts, the Epistle to the Hebrews, not to speak of 
other books of disputed authorship ? As to this we remark : 

(1) Even if the books above mentioned were to be regarded 
as uninspired, or less inspired than the apostolical ones, we 
should still have the larger part of the ISTew Testament vouched 
for as specially inspired. The other books would even in that 
case not be valueless. As the works of conscientious and 
painstaking men, having access to the best sources of informa- 
tion, they would be invaluable. This would be true of the 
Book of Acts in an especial degree, as there is nothing else that 
covers the same ground. 

(2) But it is not necessary to assume such a sharp distinction 
between the two classes of books. The promise of special in- 
spiration to the eleven apostles does not exclude the supposition 
that certain others might likewise be made subjects of a similar 
distinction. The case of Paul is here in point. He was not one 
of those to whom the promises of Jesus were addressed. Yet 
no one 1 would now esteem him as inferior in spiritual endow- 
ment and divine inspiration to the other apostles. Though 
"born out of due time," yet he became an apostle, and was 
recognized as such by the others and by the churches. He 
was not chosen to fill a vacancy, but was directly commissioned 
as the thirteenth apostle by Jesus Christ himself (Gal. i. 1, 15, 
16; Acts xxvi. 16). Somewhat similar is the case of Stephen, 
who is particularly described as a man " full of faith and of the 
Holy Ghost" (Acts vi. 5, vii. 55), as doing miracles (vi. 8), and 
as preaching with irresistible power (vi. 10). So Philip the 
Evangelist became a distinguished preacher and a miracle- 
worker (viii. 5-7, 13), and received special revelations (viii. 29, 
39), while Philip the Apostle is not once mentioned as doing 

1 Except Swede uborgians, and a few others. 



THE RECORD OF REVELATION. — INSPIRATION. 311 

apostolic work. Barnabas likewise is said to have been " full 
of the Holy Ghost " (xi. 24). He secured Paul's recognition on 
the part of the apostles (ix. 27), and became Paul's companion 
in labor, and once seems even to be called an apostle himself 
(xiv. 14). 

It is a noticeable fact that, while (except in the catalogue of 
Acts i. 13) none of the apostles are mentioned by name in the 
Acts or in the Epistles, besides Peter, John, and the two Jameses, 
prominence is given to the labors of those just mentioned as 
well as of Judas Barsabas, Silas, Apollos, Titus, Timothy, Tychi- 
cus, Epaphroditus, Mark, and Luke. Timothy is associated with 
Paul, as if joint author of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 
and of the Epistles to the Philippians, the Colossians, and the 
Thessalonians. Silas (Silvanus) appears as joint author of Eirst 
and Second Thessalonians. While none of these men can be 
put on a par with Paul in point of apostolic authority, there is 
evident reason for assuming that they had a peculiar measure of 
the Spirit. If Paul, though not included among those whom 
our Lord before his ascension commissioned and to whom he 
promised special inspiration, afterwards was invested with apos- 
tolic authority and inspiration, surely Mark and Luke may like- 
wise have been commissioned and qualified to write the histories 
which are ascribed to them. The ancient tradition that Mark 
wrote as a reporter of Peter's preaching and with his approba- 
tion, and that Luke's Gospel was written under the influence 
and with the sanction of Paul, is intrinsically probable, and 
only tends to strengthen one's confidence in the trustworthi- 
ness of the Gospels, and to give to them a quasi-apostolical 
authority. 

(3) The very fact that these writings, and no others of the 
many that appear to have come early into existence, were 
acknowledged and used by the early Christians as canonical, is 
itself an evidence that they were regarded as composed under 
the special direction of the Spirit. The value of this evidence 
does not depend on any supposed supernatural illumination of 
those who fixed the limits of the Canon. It simply shows 
that, since Sacred Scripture in general was conceived as inspired 
of God, they would not have put these writings into that class 



312 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

unless they had deemed them to have that character. This 
judgment may indeed be regarded as a mistaken one ; but there 
is a presumption in favor of this judgment, as compared with 
any later one, for the reason that those who formed it stood 
nearer to the time of the origin of the books, and had therefore 
better grounds of judgment. 

(d) But it may be urged, as another difficulty in determining 
the fact and the nature of the inspiration of the New Testament 
books, that the authors themselves do not, as a rule, make any 
claims to being specially inspired. At the most only Paul and 
John (in the Apocalypse) have anything to say about the 
special authority of their writings. 

This is a consideration which may be adduced quite as much 
for as against the inspiration of the books in question. Any 
formal announcement made by the writer say, for example, by 
Luke in his prefaces) that he had received a special commission 
and inspiration to write a book might be regarded as the mark 
of one who is thus endeavoring to secure currency for the book. 
Frequent and explicit appeals to divine inspiration as vouching 
for the authenticity and authority of a book would excite sus- 
picion. The claims which Paul himself makes are all incidental 
and not formal. He nowhere makes a general statement that 
his letters are peculiarly inspired. What he says about his 
inspiration has reference to the general commission of himself 
and the other apostles ; or, in so far as it relates particularly 
to himself, it is called out by the partisan opposition of enemies. 

Particular interest belongs to those passages in which Paul 
apparently disclaims inspiration with reference to certain of 
his written utterances. 1 In these cases at all events, it is 
sometimes argued, the apostle gives us to understand that he 
speaks simply in the character of an uninspired man. The reply 
sometimes made, that the disclaimers relating to those few 
passages prove only the more emphatically that Paul claims 
full inspiration for all the others, may have some force as an 
argumentum ad hominem, but not otherwise. On the other 
hand, to argue from them that if here, then in all probability 

1 Especially 1 Cor. vii. 6, 10, 12, 25 ; 2 Cor. xl 17, 23 ; Rom. iii. 5, vi. 19 ; 
Gal. iii. 15. 



THE RECORD OF REVELATION. — INSPIRATION. 313 

also elsewhere, the apostle may be regarded as speaking only 
as a man without special inspiration, 1 is quite beside the mark. 
The true explanation of the problem raised by these passages 
in 1 Cor. vii. is that there is not a sharp distinction between 
them and Paul's other written utterances in point of inspiration, 
but rather that they point to a distinction between what Paul 
says on the ground of express commands given by Christ and 
what he says by virtue of his own general apostolic authority. 2 
It may, indeed, fairly be inferred from these, as well as from many 
other, utterances, that the apostle's human personality asserted 
itself in his writings and in his apostolic utterances ; but this 
is all. To argue the total absence of inspiration from these 
particular passages is to resort to a theory of inspiration almost 
as mechanical as the exploded one of the post-Kef ormation 
theologians. It implies that the inspired writer was ordinarily 
distinctly conscious of a divine suggestion or dictation, but 
that here and there he suddenly found himself left to his 
unaided wisdom. There are, it is true, indications of special 
revelations received by the apostles; for example, 2 Cor. xii. 
1-4 ; Gal. ii. 2. These refer apparently to occasional and ex- 
ceptional experiences ; but there is no good reason for assuming 
that the ordinary inspiration of the apostles was of an inter- 
mittent sort. This may with more probability be affirmed of 
the inspiration of the Old Testament prophets. Under the 
Old Covenant, when " the Spirit was not yet given " (John vii. 
39) as a general possession of the people of God, the contrast 
between the prophet and ordinary men, as also between the 
prophet's ordinary state and his state of prophetic inspiration, 
was doubtless greater than existed under the New Covenant. 
It is also very doubtful whether any sharp distinction can 
be made between the official and the extra-official activity of 
the apostles. 3 It is by this distinction that the difficulty arising 
from Peter's defection at Antioch 4 is got over. He was, it is 

1 As is done by Row, Revelation and Modern Theology Contrasted, pp. 
113 sq. 

2 Vide Cremer, in Herzog and Plitt's Realencyclopddie, art. Inspiration ; 
Ladd, Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 203 ; Wright, Divine Authority 
of the Bible, pp. 29 sq. 

3 As is done by Lee, Inspiration, etc., pp. 237 sqq. 4 Gal. ii. 11-14. 



314 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

said, then acting as a mere man, not as an apostle. But Paul 
evidently, in his rebuke of Peter, made no such distinction. To 
his mind Peter, by his weakness, was lending all his apostolic, 
as well as personal influence in favor of a course that was to 
be condemned. If his conduct tended to force the Gentile con- 
verts to Judaize (Gal. ii 14), it was doubtless because it was 
viewed as the conduct of an apostle. Barnabas and the others 
were " carried away " by Peter's example, because it was Peter the 
Apostle who set the example. If it should be said that, though 
they may have thought him to be acting officially, yet in reality 
he was at that moment destitute of apostolic character, it is 
sufficient to answer that such a distinction between apostolic 
and unapostolic character is practically an idle one, unless it is 
meant that all that an apostle did was without authority, but 
that all he said and wrote was strictly inspired. This, however, 
is an utterly untenable position. Paul in this same chapter 
(ii. 2) tells of an action which was done " by revelation," and 
goes on to speak of his action relative to Titus as having been 
taken in order "that the truth of the gospel might continue 
with" the Galatians (ver. 5). On the other hand Paul's words 
addressed to the high-priest, as recorded in Acts xxiii. 3, can 
hardly be regarded as according to the mind of the Spirit ; for 
Paul himself found immediate occasion to apologize for them. 
Actions speak louder than words ; and apostolic conduct must 
have been a very important part of apostolic teaching. 

Still it may be rightly urged that a man's utterances are 
more likely to be correct than his conduct. The judgment and 
the conscience are usually in advance of the will. One may 
through the force of sudden temptation commit an act which 
he would condemn when speaking or writing dispassionately 
and giving utterance to his conscientious convictions. It has 
often been remarked that Peter's addresses and epistles give no 
countenance to the error which was countenanced by his conduct 
at Antioch. And it may in general be observed that in the act 
of writing one is least of all in danger of being swept away by 
external solicitation or by sudden gusts of passion into rash and 
unguarded utterances. 1 An inspired man, writing for the edifi- 

1 Cf. Rougemont, Christ et ses temolns, vol. ii. p. 343. Yet some have argued 



THE RECORD OF REVELATION. — INSPIRATION. 315 

cation of the churches, would naturally in this act, when he 
could weigh his words and summon up all his deepest con- 
victions and most instructive knowledge, give utterance to 
the purest and truest sentiments of which he is possessed. 
On this ground, but not on the ground of any inspiration 
peculiar to apostolic writing, as distinguished from apostolic 
speaking, the writings of the apostles may be said to be of 
superior value to their oral utterances, or to the lessons of 
their conduct. 

(e) But it may still be objected, that little practical advan- 
tage is gained by the theory that a peculiar inspiration was 
accorded to the writers of the Bible, so long as no one can define 
what its nature was, nor tell how much was accomplished by it. 
If the writers wrote out of the impulse of their own minds ; if 
there is really a human element in the Scriptures; if even we 
undertake to specify different degrees in the inspiration, 1 — then 
is there not given to us scope for the most unlimited caprice in 
determining what and how much shall be accepted as strictly 
divine and authoritative? 

To this we reply, that, though we may not know precisely how 
and how far inspiration worked, it is yet not a matter of in- 
difference whether the Biblical writers enjoyed a special divine 
guidance. Their words have for us another force, when re- 
garded as peculiarly inspired of God, than when regarded as 
written only under such divine influence as is accorded to all 
godly men. For though we may and must make a distinction 
between revelation and the record of revelation, yet practically 
to us now the record is the revelation itself. We know accu- 

in just the opposite way, urging that, since preaching, not writing, was the 
main commission and work of the apostles, and they had, so far as we know, 
no expectation that their writings would ever be treated as canonical Scripture, 
it is probable that they took the most pains with the preparation of their oral 
addresses. So Rothe, Zur Dogmatik, p. 213. 

1 As, eg,, Kahnis, Lutherische Dogmatik, vol. iii. p. 161, who finds three 
degrees: (1) that of prophets and apostles; (2) the writers of the poetic and 
didactic books ; (3) the historians. Among the latter, however, he makes dis- 
tinctions, putting Joshua, Judges, etc., above Ruth, Esther, etc. (the histories 
in the Hagiographa), and in the New Testament Matthew and John above 
Mark and Luke. 



316 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

rately of the things revealed only through the written record. 
And as the revelation is authoritative to us only by virtue of 
its being a special communication of God, so the Scriptures, as 
the record of revelation, and as being practically the real reve- 
lation, can effectually maintain their authoritative position as 
the norm of Christian life and opinion, only as they are held 
to have been penned under a divine direction which invests 
them with an altogether peculiar authority. 1 And the objec- 
tion, that one cannot define how the inspiration of the Biblical 
writers differed from that of other godly men, is no more con- 
clusive against the fact of such difference, than the impossi- 
bility of exactly defining the inspiration of the prophets and 
other organs of special revelation is a proof that there never 
has been any special revelation at all. 

With reference to this and other difficulties that may be 
raised, the words of Bishop Butler 2 are still pertinent : " The 
only question concerning the truth of Christianity is whether 
it be a real revelation, not whether it be attended with every 
circumstance which we should have looked for ; and concerning 
the authority of Scripture, whether it be what it claims to be, 
not whether it be a book of such sort, and so promulgated, as 
weak men are apt to fancy a book containing a divine revelation 
should. And therefore neither obscurity, nor seeming inaccu- 
racy of style, nor various readings, nor early disputes about the 
authors of particular parts, nor any other things of like kind, 
though they had been much more considerable in degree than 
they are, could overthrow the authority of the Scripture, unless 
the prophets, apostles, or our Lord had promised that the book 
containing the divine revelation should be secure from those 
things." 

But how are we to understand this " authority of the Scrip- 
ture " of which Bishop Butler speaks ? Is it a strict authority, 
— an ultimate, absolute authority ? Or is it to be supplemented, 
or even corrected, by something else, — by the human reason, 
or the Christian judgment and experience ? Are the Scriptures 

1 Cf. Prof. G. N. Boardman on Inspiration (Bibliotheca Sacra, 1884, pp. 
527 sq.). 

2 Analogy, etc., part ii. chap. iii. 



THE RECORD OF REVELATION. — INSPIRATION. 317 

to be regarded as the supreme authority, or, on the other hand, 
is the so-called " Christian consciousness " 1 to be regarded as a 
secondary or co-ordinate authority alongside of the Scriptures ? 
The consideration of this question is necessary as a supplement 
to the foregoing discussion. 

1 This barbarous phrase, imported into our language as a translation from 
the German, where also it is a modernism dating from Schleiermacher, is an 
unfortunate one, the use of which ought to be discouraged. In spite of all 
explanations, it will often, if not generally, be understood as implying (what 
the English word naturally means) a direct perception or intuition of truth 
analogous to what is commonly meant by " consciousness ; " and so the dispute 
about the thing is complicated by a misunderstanding about the meaning of 
the word. If the Christian is really conscious of this or that, why, that should 
be the end of all debate ; if not, then why use a word which properly means 
that ? Better avoid the phrase entirely rather than foster needless confusion 
and contention. It is true that there is no one word which fully expresses the 
somewhat complex conception meant to be expressed by the phrase " Christian 
(or religious) consciousness." But "experience," "judgment," "feeling," 
"mind," or "sense," can generally be used, and certainly have the advantage 
of not being ambiguous and misleading. The term " consciousness " is es- 
pecially objectionable in composition, as, e. g., " God-consciousness " and 
"world-consciousness," — hideous terms which are used as the equivalents 
of Gottesbewusstsein and Weltbewusstsein, i. e. consciousness (or sense) of God 
and of the world. But the terms might as well mean God's consciousness 
and the world's consciousness ; in fact, Mr. Royce, in his Religious Aspect of 
Philosophy, p. 348, uses the term "world-consciousness" in the sense of "uni- 
versal consciousness," as contrasted with the individual's consciousness. 



318 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION, 



CHAPTER X. 

THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 

THE fact of a divine revelation is now taken for granted. 
Christianity is assumed to be the chief and final disclo- 
sure of the character and purposes of God. But it is a some- 
what different question, whether the Bible, as we have it, can lay 
claim to be an absolute authority. 

Much is said nowadays about the matter of religious assur- 
ance. The need is felt of a firm and impregnable ground to 
stand on, as over against the assaults of skeptics and materialists 
from without, or the unsettling effects of inward doubt. Some 
find it in the Christian experience; 1 others in the objective 
authority of the Bible. Thus, for example, President F. L. Patton 
says : " A man feels certain, let us suppose, that Christ is his 
Saviour. . . . How does he know that his certitude rests on a 
sure basis ? Because, we shall be told, this certitude is the wit- 
ness of the Spirit of God. But what has led him to interpret his 
consciousness in this way ? The Bible, of course ; for it is there 
we learn that the Christian hath the witness in himself. The 
case, then, seems to be this : The Christian has the present 
certitude of consciousness. When he reflects upon it, however, 
he finds that subjective certitude is not necessarily a guaranty of 
objective fact. He seeks to corroborate his certitude by account- 
ing for it. He accounts for it by ascribing it to the witness of 
the Spirit. He is authorized to ascribe it to this cause by the 
Bible. So that the certitude of consciousness, after all, depends 
upon the authority of the Bible. But what becomes of the certi- 

1 K g. , Dorner, in the conviction of sin and in the apprehension of Christ 
as a sufficient Saviour, Christian Doctrine, §11; Erank, in the consciousness 
of being regenerate, System der christ lichen Gewissheit, § 15 (in Clark's Theo- 
logical Library, System of Christian Certainty). 



THE AUTHOEITY OF THE SCEIPTCEES. 319 

tude of consciousness, if this certitude rests ultimately upon the 
Bible, and the Bible gives us only probability ? " x 

The implication here is that the Bible is the ultimate source 
of Christian assurance, and that therefore there can be no real 
certitude unless the Bible can be depended on as absolutely 
infallible. But this at once suggests the further question : How 
does one come to know that the Bible is infallible ? If we 
depend on its testimony for our Christian certitude, then we must 
be sure that its testimony is absolutely trustworthy. It is not 
infallible to us, unless we believe in the infallibility of the judg- 
ment which pronounces it to be infallible. How, then, is this 
judgment reached ? 

There are two methods by which the authority of the Bible is 
argued, the subjective and the objective. The first is that em- 
phasized by the early Protestant theologians, who affirmed that 
the Christian recbgnizes the divinity of the Scriptures by virtue 
of the direct testimony of the Holy Spirit within him; the 
judgment being a sort of intuitive judgment, perfectly satis- 
factory, though not capable of being reduced to the form of a 
logical argument. It is manifest that, if this is the source of 
our knowledge of the Bible's infallibility, then a most important 
function is thus assigned to the Christian's private judgment. 
Inasmuch as the Spirit's testimony cannot be consciously distin- 
guished from the Christian's own mental process, and inasmuch 
as the Christian mind is in any case a mind enlightened by the 
Holy Spirit, this alleged recognition of the divine authority of 
the Scriptures is practically a simple deliverance of the Chris- 
tian " consciousness " in the proper sense of that term. 

It would seem to be an obvious inference from this doctrine, 
that a judgment or intuition which is able directly and infallibly 
to pronounce all the books of the Bible — these wholly and 
these alone — to be the inspired and faultless Word of God, 
must be infallible with regard to spiritual truth in general ; and 
so a very wide door is opened for the largest claims which may 
be made on behalf of the authority of the " Christian conscious- 
ness." True, the doctrine was not so meant. The design was 
to postulate for the Christian soul the power unerringly to detect 

1 The New York Independent, Dec. 4, 1S84. 



320 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

in the Bible a divine standard of truth, which being discovered, 
the Christian's judgment can be absolutely trusted in nothing 
else; the objective standard, discovered by the subjective method, 
must be accepted as the only and perfect standard. But this 
itself suggests the weak point in the doctrine. This alleged 
faculty of the Christian mind, if it really gives us assurance 
concerning the special inspiration and divine authority of just 
our canonical Scriptures, must be able, in order to do this, to dis- 
cern the perfect truth and divinity of each and every part of 
the Bible. It must be able infallibly to distinguish the apoc- 
ryphal from the canonical. It must be able to pronounce judg- 
ment concerning the genuineness, or at least the inspiration, of 
the disputed books. It must be able to detect all interpolations 
of uninspired transcribers, and all deviations of the manuscripts 
from the original record. And all this, before it can pronounce the 
Bible as a whole to be absolutely infallible. For 'unless the Chris- 
tian is sure respecting all these critical and historical questions, he 
cannot be sure that every part of the Bible as we have it is strictly 
divine, and therefore he cannot pronounce the whole to be so. 

Evidently this is attributing altogether too much to the author- 
ity of the " Christian consciousness." However true it may be 
that the Bible carries with it a power peculiarly its own, and 
makes an impression, in its general import and drift, of convey- 
ing a divine message, probably few can be found who would 
claim for the Christian judgment the power of intuitively settling 
all the vexed questions of canonicity and inspiration. The true 
Christian spirit itself rejects the assumption which has been 
made on its own behalf. 

Whatever of truth there is in this doctrine of the testimonium 
Spiritu Sancti can have relation only to the vital truths of reve- 
lation, — the saving truths that are capable of being translated 
into religious experience. A testimony of the Spirit which 
should go further than this, — which should testify concerning 
the infallible inspiration of every minutest utterance of the 
sacred writers, however remote it might be from one's actual 
religious life, — such a testimony would be itself nothing short 
of a new revelation. The testimony of the Spirit, unless it is 
such a supernatural communication, can be nothing but a con- 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 321 

scious experience of a spiritual sort, — as, for example, of re- 
generation, of the beatifying and purifying effect of the sense 
of pardon, of a growing love to God and men, etc., — such an 
experience as illustrates and confirms what relates to it in the 
Scriptures. But no religious experience can ever enable a man 
to determine whether the name of the great king of Babylon 
should be called Nebuchadnezzar or Nebuchadrezzar. A Chris- 
tian man will find in the Scriptures as a whole a spirit which 
seems to him to be of divine origin. His own spirit, illumined 
by the Divine Spirit, will discern in the Scriptures the marks 
of a superhuman influence that must have been concerned in 
the production of them. He will be conscious of a peculiar 
stimulus and illumination as coming from the contents of the 
Bible. But no religious experience can go to the length of en- 
abling a man to recognize the divine inspiration and authority 
of every part of the Biblical books. 

And so we come to the second method by which the divine 
authority of the Bible is argued, — the objective method, which 
relies on the so-called external evidences. In brief it is this : 
The apostles were honest, earnest, and intelligent men; they 
affirmed the sinlessness and divinity of Jesus Christ ; they re- 
corded that he promised them the inspiration of the Holy 
Ghost ; therefore the books written by them must be infallibly 
inspired. But plainly this argument is not a logically demon- 
strative one, however great its force may be. The first premise 
is denied by some ; but granting its validity we meet at every 
point a lack of absolute conclusiveness. For example, how does 
the general promise of inspiration necessarily involve absolute 
infallibility ? All Christians enjoy the indwelling of the Spirit ; 
where do we find indicated the sharp distinction between apos- 
tolic infallibility and the general fallibility of all other Chris- 
tians ? Again, how does the general promise of inspiration 
imply special and infallible inspiration in the act of writing ? 
And again, even if this were made out, how does the promise 
of the special inspiration to the eleven apostles involve equal 
inspiration to all the writers of the New Testament ? Paul, 
Mark, and Luke were not among those to whom the promises 
were addressed. Only a small part of the New Testament pro- 

21 



322 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

fesses to be, and not even all of this part is universally admitted 
to be, the work of any of those to whom Christ was speak- 
ing. But further, even if this flaw in the argument be over- 
looked, how are we absolutely certain that the books which we 
have are exactly the same as those which came from the hands 
of the writers? Clearly, then, this argument cannot be pro- 
nounced perfectly conclusive. If the Christian, in order to be 
certain of salvation through Christ, depends on the Biblical 
statement respecting the witness of the Spirit ; and if his as- 
surance of the truth of this statement depends upon his cer- 
tainty that all of the Bible (at least all of the New Testament) 
is infallibly true ; and if his certainty on this point is derived 
from the argument above given, — then his certitude must be 
badly affected with uncertainty. The most certain thing about 
it is that, if the authority of the Bible rests for us on the logical 
cogency of this argument, if it can be no more absolute than 
the argument is irrefragable, then the Bible does "give us only 
probability," — a very high degree of probability, no doubt, but 
still only probability. 

Each of these methods of proof, then, is by itself defective. 
Neither of them is adequate to demonstrate the infallible au- 
thority of the Scriptures. Will, however, both combined accom- 
plish the desired object ? Undoubtedly, as there is force in each, 
the two strengthen each other. But two probabilities cannot 
be added together so as to produce an absolute certainty. And 
in the present case it is to be noted that each argument is 
weakest in the same place : in the demonstration of the infalli- 
bility of those portions of the Scriptures which have the least 
to do with what is vital to the Christian life. 

The consciousness of this weakness of the argument has led 
on both sides to the adoption of the view that Biblical inspira- 
tion has chiefly or wholly to do with moral and religious truth, 
and does not necessarily secure to the writer such absolute free- 
dom from all error as can scarcely be anything but the product 
of omniscience. The locus classicus on the subject of Biblical 
inspiration (2 Tim. iii. 15, 16) itself lays all the stress on just 
this spiritual use of the Scriptures. Accordingly it has become 
a wide-spread opinion that, while the Bible must be regarded as 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 323 

infallible in its religious teachings, it may be left an open ques- 
tion, at least, whether its writers may not have erred with regard 
to historical, philosophical, and scientific matters. In one way 
this conception of the subject is certainly an improvement on 
that which makes the reality of revelation as a whole stand or 
fall with the perfect agreement of every minutest part of the 
Bible with the results of the latest scientific researches. But 
the theory has some difficulties of its own. It retains the as- 
sumption of an absolute infallibility in the Bible, but makes a 
theoretical distinction between the religious and the scientific 
which in point of fact it is difficult or impossible to carry out. 
No man can tell where the religious ends and the scientific 
begins. And the difficulty becomes all the greater, the more 
clearly it is recognized that Christianity is essentially not so 
much a system of revealed doctrines as it is a body of historic 
facts. To distinguish sharply between the historical and the 
religious in Christianity is impossible, for the historical is re- 
ligious. 1 If inspiration is supposed to have guided the writers 
in all their religious communications, and to have been denied 
them in everything else, the practical result of such a view will 
be that one will feel himself to be at liberty to draw the line of 
demarkation between the true and the erroneous wherever he 
may please. This, then, is obviously not the full solution of 
the problem. 

On the other hand, however, it is equally clear that the prob- 
lem is not solved by ascribing to the Christian judgment the 
capacity of discerning and testing religious truth independently 
of Biblical or other external helps. If the individual mind is the 
absolute criterion, then the individual is to that extent infallible. 
But individual Christians do not all agree with one another, and 
of course not all of them are infallible. Is, then, the common 
Christian judgment the unerring standard of religious truth? 
This is more plausible ; but the common judgment is only the 
aggregate of the individual judgments ; and unless there is some 
infallible method of striking an average which will yield us an 
infallible result, it is idle to hold up the common judgment as the 

1 See a suggestive discussion of this point by Prof. E. P. Gould on the 
Extent of Inspiration, in the Bibliotheca Sacra for 1878. 



324 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

unfailing standard. Besides, does not the history of the Church 
seem to show that the majority of Christians may become the vic- 
tims of error ? As Protestants, how can we think otherwise ? 

What shall we say then ? Let us attempt to fix upon some 
of the general principles which must underlie any correct settle- 
ment of this question. 

1. Christianity is not the offspring either of man's natural 
consciousness or of the Bible. It originated as a revelation from 
God mediated by Jesus Christ. Although men often loosely 
speak as if the New Testament were the source of Christianity, 
yet the truth needs only to be stated to receive immediate assent, 
that neither originally, nor generally at present, do men become 
believers in Christ directly and simply on account of what they 
find in the New Testament. 1 Originally Christianity was widely 
established before there was any New Testament. The apostles 
preached it as a divine revelation ; their successors handed down 
their testimony. Parents taught the Christian faith to their 
children, and churches were planted all over the Eoman Empire 
before the Gospels and the Epistles were written. And no less 
true is it now that the Christian religion is propagated from 
person to person, and not chiefly by the reading of the Bible. 
Children are taught to believe in Christ before they are able 
intelligently to read the New Testament. The impenitent are 
gathered into the Church mostly through the personal influence 
of Christians, and not by first becoming convinced of the divine 
authority of the Bible. 

It is equally manifest that Christianity did not originate, and 
is not now propagated, as a mere intuition of the human mind. 
It is not a system of truths wrought out by philosophical medi- 
tation, and is not now presented to men as something which every 
one is capable of evolving out of his own consciousness. It comes 
to men as a divine revelation, communicated from one generation 
to another. Just as soon as professed Christians discard this 
view, and pretend that the essence of Christianity is to be found 
in every man's intuitions, we know that such men have lost, or 
have never found, the essence of Christianity. 

1 Cf. Kahnis, Lutherische Dogmatik, vol. iii. §§ 6, 8. "In fact, the ordinary 
way by which the Word brings man to the truth is that of tradition." 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 325 

2. In the strict sense neither human opinion nor the Bible 
is invested with any authority over the Christian Church. Christ 
is the supreme and only authority. He is the Lord and Master. 
All branches of Christendom recognize this ; but Papists make 
the clergy or the Pope Christ's infallible representative, and so, 
practically, the substitute for Christ as an authority. Protes- 
tants sometimes do nearly the same thing, when they pin their 
faith to the dicta of some great theologian. But it is the funda- 
mental principle of Protestant Christianity, that Christians have 
direct access and relation to their divine Master, and need no 
priestly or other human intervention. The convictions or specu- 
lations of no successor, or substitute, or representative, of Christ 
can replace him as Master, or claim the right to control Christian 
faith or life. 

So far all is clear. But is not the Bible — at least the New 
Testament — after all in some sense an authority? What are 
the facts ? As we have observed, the New Testament was not 
the source, but only the product or depository, of the Christian 
revelation. It is not authoritative as being the author of our 
religion. But is not the New Testament an authoritative record? 
It certainly was not such before it was in existence. When 
Christ's gospel was proclaimed only orally, men received the 
apostolic testimony whenever they became convinced of its 
truth ; and they did not become convinced of its truth by first 
becoming convinced of the infallible authority of the apostles. 
And after men became Christians, they were not expected to 
acknowledge the apostles as having a right authoritatively to 
control their religious conduct and opinions. Paul expressly 
disclaims any right to exercise lordship over the faith of his 
converts (2 Cor. i. 24). And though he sometimes (especially 
in the Epistle to the Galatians) seems to assume magisterial 
authority, he is careful to make it clear that he speaks as " a 
servant of Christ" (i. 10); and his reproof of the Galatians is 
put on the ground that they had disobeyed, not him, but the 
gospel which he had preached (i. 6-9). "We preach not our- 
selves, but Christ Jesus as Lord" (2 Cor. iv. 5), — this is every- 
where the spirit of the apostolic message. 

If now the apostles as living preachers exercised and claimed 



326 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

no authority over the churches, no more can such authority be 
ascribed to their writings. What the apostles said by word of 
mouth and what they said by letter would naturally be held in 
equal estimation. Nowhere do they themselves attribute supe- 
rior weight to their writings. Why, then, is so much importance 
now attached to the New Testament ? For the obvious reason 
that the apostles and other early witnesses of Christ's work and 
words are dead. If Peter and John were still living with un- 
clouded memories and with apostolic inspiration, and could tell 
us in person what they saw and heard and thought, that testi- 
mony would be quite as valuable as what we now get from their 
writings, — and indeed more so, inasmuch as it would be more 
full and direct, and more free from the liability of being modi- 
fied and adulterated which besets the transmission of written 
records through the centuries. But the apostles had to die ; and 
that process has been a natural and indeed a necessary one, by 
which their writings, and the writings of others who stood near 
to them and to the things narrated, became invested with an 
increasing value. Those writings embodied the substance of 
the oral apostolic testimony on which the Church had been 
founded. There was danger that without such a permanent 
record of their teachings the gospel might become corrupted. 
The farther the Church is removed from the time of the apostles, 
and consequently from a trustworthy tradition of their utterances, 
the more valuable and indispensable do these Scriptures become. 
They must continue to be the canon, the rule, the safeguard 
against abnormal deviations from what Christ and his immediate 
followers taught. 

In an important sense, therefore, the Scriptures (especially 
those of the New Testament) are authoritative : but they are only 
mediately authoritative. They are authoritative as a written 
edict is which purports to have come from a sovereign; the 
written words have no authority except as they make known the 
w T ill of him in whom the authority resides. So over the Chris- 
tian Church Christ is still the only Master. Our allegiance is 
due to him, not to the Scriptures. As the Church was founded 
and for a considerable time was propagated without any written 
law, so it is conceivable that it might have continued to the 



THE AUTHOEITY.OF THE SCRIPTURES. 327 

present day without the written records. As already intimated, 
in an important sense it has been so handed down. There exists 
a great volume of Christian faith which, beginning during the 
life of Christ, has been propagated from generation to generation 
by living believers from that time to this. This Christian faith, 
experience, sentiment, motive, hope, — in short, this Christian 
life, in so far as it is genuine, also possesses a sort of authority. 
Otherwise it could not be commended with confidence by one 
to another. But it, too, has only a relative authority. It is an 
outflow from Him who alone is the absolute Truth and Life. 

But this suggests the question : Which has the most of this 
relative authority, — the Bible or the Christian experience ? 
To this it may be replied in part by observing that — 

3. It is impossible that in any vital respect a normal Chris- 
tian experience should conflict with a correct understanding 
of the Christian Scriptures. For both the Christian experience 
and the Christian Scriptures come from the same source, — from 
Him who is the Truth and the Life. It is idle, therefore, to 
speak of these as materially conflicting with each other. 

To be sure, it may be said that these three qualifications here 
rob the proposition of all special value. What is a normal 
Christian experience ? and a correct understanding of the Scrip- 
tures ? and a conflict on vital points ? Who is to determine 
when these conditions are fulfilled ? Yet it is not without im- 
portance to emphasize the proposition, self-evident as it may 
seem to be. For if Christian life and the Christian Scriptures 
come from the same source, then the question as to the relative 
authority of the two loses, to say the least, much of the signifi- 
cance often attached to it. At all events, an abnormal or spu- 
rious Christian experience has no authority ; and neither has the 
Bible, wrongly understood. But a healthy Christian sentiment 
is of more weight than a wrong conception of Biblical truth ; as, on 
the other hand, the Scriptures, understood according to their true 
spirit, are of more weight than a perverted Christian judgment. 

But, it may be asked, do not the Scriptures have a certain 
priority ? In order to secure a normal development of the 
Christian life, must we not make the Bible the standard of faith 
and conduct ? If it is true that a healthy Christian experience 



328 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

will not conflict with the Bible, is not that because a Christian 
experience is healthy only when it is built up on the Bible ? 
It would be easy, perhaps, to give an unqualifiedly affirmative 
answer to these questions, were we not at once confronted with 
the requirement that the Scriptures, in order to be a safe guide, 
must be rightly understood, and that they can be rightly under- 
stood only by one who already has a normal Christian experience. 
We thus seem to be moving in a circle : The normal Christian 
experience depends on a correct understanding and application 
of the Bible, while a correct understanding of the Bible depends 
on a normal Christian experience. The solution of the difficulty 
is to be sought in the very fact above emphasized, that both the 
personal Christian life and the history of God's revelation come 
from the same source ; neither of them is solely dependent on 
the other ; and for the same reason neither of them can materi- 
ally conflict with the other. If God revealed himself in the 
gospel of Christ, and provided that that gospel should be both 
preached and recorded by the original recipients of the revela- 
tion, and that the gospel should be continuously propagated, 
there must be essential agreement between the written record 
and the continuous product of the revelation. This is said on 
the assumption that our New Testament is what it has com- 
monly been supposed to be, namely, a trustworthy history of 
the origin of Christianity, and a correct embodiment of its 
essential spirit. And on this there is virtual unanimity. If the 
fact were otherwise, if the New Testament were (as some ex- 
tremists have held) the product of the second century and in its 
distinctive features untrustworthy, then the necessary inference 
would be that we have no certain knowledge of the Christian 
revelation, and indeed that it is doubtful whether there was any 
revelation, properly so called, at all. For the New Testament at 
all events represents what, at the time of its production, were 
supposed to be the facts respecting the origin and the essence of 
the Christian revelation. No oral tradition could in any case 
be more trustworthy than these written productions, as regards 
the primitive history of Christianity. In point of fact, however, 
the oral tradition itself unanimously testifies to the trustworthi- 
ness of the written records. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 329 

Thus far, then, Christian experience and the Bible seem to be 
in a sense co-ordinate, each having a relative, but neither of them 
an absolute, authority. And they are assumed to be in essential 
concord. But the question may still be pressed : Suppose there 
is, at least on some points, an alleged disagreement between 
Christian sentiment and the language of the Scriptures, what 
then ? As to this we observe : 

4. In so far as the Bible and Christian opinion can be set 
over against each other, the Bible is to be regarded as the 
superior and regulative authority. If for no other reason, the 
Scriptures possess a peculiar authority by virtue of their being 
the most original exposition of Christian truth and history. 
Their authors lived nearest to the sources of information, and 
even if endowed with no peculiar gifts, they are, on ordinary 
principles of judgment, to be regarded as better exponents of 
Christian truth than any later authorities can be. And even if 
in certain matters of unimportant detail it seems impossible to 
give full assent to the Biblical statements, the corrective is to be 
found in other parts of the Bible itself. It is certainly con- 
ceivable that some incidental features of the Bible are inconsis- 
tent with the main drift of Biblical teaching. In such cases it 
is not the Christian judgment as an independent authority, but 
the Christian judgment as formed and enlightened under the 
influence of the Scriptures themselves, which modifies the Scrip- 
tural statements. Manifestly in such instances one cannot 
speak of the Christian judgment as overruling or contradicting 
the Bible. It is a judgment in which the general drift of the 
Scriptures is set over against subordinate features of it. Whether 
there is a real contradiction between the general drift and these 
incidental features is a distinct question, respecting which a 
difference of opinion may exist. At this point we need only to 
insist that there is a general presumption in favor of the correct- 
ness of the Biblical statements. 

So much will be readily conceded by all who hold that the 
Bible — especially the New Testament — is in general a trust- 
worthy record of God's special revelation of his saving grace. 
Let one make what distinctions he will between the main pur- 
pose of the book and its incidental features, still the very fact 



330 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

that the main purpose is one of supreme importance diminishes 
the probability of serious faults in the subordinate particulars. 
If we find there a correct account of Christ, his character, words, 
and work, the presumption is that the local, historical, and in- 
cidental setting of that account is correct also ; especially as the 
portraiture of Christ and his work is so largely given in the 
form of historical sketches that serious inaccuracy in the details 
must almost necessarily involve inaccuracy with regard to the 
main point. Moreover, if we believe that the preparation and 
preservation of these early written memorials of the work of 
redemption were in the divine mind of serious importance as a 
means of securing the transmission of a correct report to later 
generations, we can hardly avoid believing that these memorials 
were in some sense prepared under special providential direc- 
tion, and, to say the least, possess a peculiarly high degree of 
credibility. Although the revelation is to be distinguished from 
the written record of it, yet, if the written record was needed (on 
account of the certain danger of error in merely oral tradition) 
in order to preserve a pure gospel, it was needful that the record 
itself should be substantially free from error. 

We have thus, at the outset, what we may call a deliverance 
of the Christian judgment itself in favor of the general and 
special trustworthiness of the New Testament in its description 
of Christ and the Christian revelation. As over against those 
who regard the Christian Scriptures as generally the work of 
weak, fanatical, and untrustworthy men, Christians must regard 
them, on the contrary, as of peculiar value. It is practically 
inconceivable that the Christian Church in general should ever 
come to adopt the view that one may freely doubt, disbelieve, 
modify, or correct the Biblical account of God's revelation of 
himself. Such a position would amount to the self-destruction 
of Christianity. 

Does this mean, now, that everything, without exception, that 
is found in the Scriptures is to be accepted as absolutely un- 
adulterated truth ? Is all critical inquiry into the historical and 
scientific accuracy or logical soundness of Biblical utterances to 
be cut off ? By no means. The Bible was written by imper- 
fect and fallible men ; and it is only by the use of the rational 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 331 

and critical judgment that Christians have come to regard it as 
of exceptional trustworthiness. If the same method of exami- 
nation should reveal occasional instances of discrepancy and 
error, this would be nothing more than what might be expected, 
unless it has been demonstrated that the writers were so in- 
spired as to make them absolutely infallible. But no such 
demonstration has ever been made. On the contrary, it has 
become one of the commonplaces of Biblical criticism, that the 
existence of discrepancies, on minor points, between different 
writers who have traversed the same ground is one of the best 
evidences of the independence, originality, and genuineness of 
the writings. 

But while the possibility and even probability of unimportant 
inaccuracies in the sacred record may be admitted, it must still 
be insisted that the general faith in the genuineness of the 
Christian revelation carries with it such a presumption in favor 
of the trustworthiness of the Bible, not only in general, but in 
detail, that the burden of proof may always be rightly thrown 
upon the man w T ho brings a charge of error even respecting 
minor and incidental matters. 1 And at all events, as regards 
the main purpose and drift of the record of revelation, the 
Biblical books must be regarded as the perpetual fountain and 
only external standard of revealed truth and religious life. 
This must be the Christian attitude towards the Scriptures in 
general. In particular, the New Testament as a whole must be 
taken as the regulative source of our knowledge of Christ's 
nature, doctrines, and work. There are only three possible 

1 Whether any of the apparent inaccuracies and discrepancies of the Bible 
are incontestably such is a question on which opinions will vary according to 
one's preconceptions. The general fact is that, if one is predisposed to find 
error, he can make out a list of indefinite length ; whereas if one is predisposed 
to believe that there are none at all, the apparent errors can be explained away 
with greater or less plausibility. On either side there is a liability to use some 
violence in the interpretation of the facts. We cannot go into the vexed ques- 
tions in detail, but must refer to the Commentaries, Bible Dictionaries, and 
other works treating of the several points in dispute. J. W. Haley, Allegea 
Discrepancies of the Bible, gives perhaps the most comprehensive discussion 
of the subject. Prof. J. J. Given, The Truth of Scripture in connection with 
Revelation, Inspiration, and the Canon, discusses some of the more difficult 
cases. 



332 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

ways in which this knowledge can be supposed to have come 
to us : by direct personal intercourse with Christ ; by oral tra- 
dition through the Christian Church ; by written records. As 
to the first, while it must always be insisted that there is a 
direct relation of every Christian to Christ, and such a relation 
that we may say with John (1 John i. 3), " Our fellowship is 
with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ/' yet all attempts 
to attain such a fellowship by a purely direct process, indepen- 
dently of the help and guidance of the outward historical sources 
of knowledge, invariably tend to a one-sided and fanatical mysti- 
cism. Though it is a truth never to be surrendered, that each 
individual must believe or disbelieve for himself, yet it is equally 
true that no one can attain a genuine faith which is not largely 
the product of external instruction. Mysticism itself, even in 
its wildest forms, cannot disengage itself from the influence of 
example and education. The more it undertakes to do so, the 
more certainly does it violate the fundamental principle of Chris- 
tianity, that Christians are to constitute a body, a brotherhood, 
each of whom is to be helpful and indebted to every other ; the 
more certainly, too, will it degenerate into unbridled caprice, 
and become a hotbed of intellectual vagaries, of moral lawless- 
ness, or of deceitful pretensions to prophetic inspiration. 

What, then, shall be the regulative check to prevent such 
fanatical excesses ? Shall it be the oral tradition of the Chris- 
tian Church ? In an important sense it must be. Christianity 
is transmitted orally, and has been so transmitted from the first. 
For nearly a generation tradition was the principal or only 
source of transmission. When the New Testament books were 
first written, the testimony of the still living apostles was co- 
ordinate with those books as a source of enlightenment respect- 
ing Jesus Christ. And if the traditions concerning apostolic 
teaching could have been orally propagated in an uncorrupt 
form, they might properly still be accepted as a valid and au- 
thoritative source of information respecting Christian truth. 
But all experience shows that tradition cannot be depended on 
to preserve itself for long periods free from error. It can claim 
infallibility only in so far as it can claim to be itself super- 
naturally preserved from error, — a claim which can never be 






THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 333 

substantiated. Moreover, even tradition itself asserts the supe- 
rior authority of the Scriptures. Even the extremest Papal 
doctrine of the authority of tradition has never gone so far as 
in theory to set tradition above the New Testament as a source 
of light and authority. The Scriptures have by all the prin- 
cipal branches of Christendom been accepted as constituting the 
standard of truth contrary to which no pretended authority can 
be valid. They are a fixed standard ; tradition is variable. 
They are the oldest standard ; all subsequent traditions and 
speculations must be tested by them. 

The Scriptures, then, must constitute the only regulative 
standard of Christian belief and practice. Whatever growth 
or progress there may be in the Christian Church must be a 
growth out of, not away from, the original germ, whose most 
authentic accessible embodiment is found in the New Testament 
Scriptures. It is practically inconceivable that any tradition 
should be more trustworthy than those records, or that any 
intuition or reflection should lead one to more truthful con- 
ceptions of the nature and mission of Christ than those which 
are there found set forth or involved. 

But the question still remains : In case those Scriptures are 
inconsistent with themselves, or seem to contradict the better 
religious sense of men, must not that religious sense become 
the decisive arbiter ? To this it must be answered that, if the 
pretended religious sense contradicts the general drift of the 
teaching of the New Testament, then it necessarily ceases to be 
a Christian religious sense. It is more plausible when some 
men insist that, as Christ is the centre of Christianity, that 
part of the Scripture is to have the precedence in which his 
own language is directly given ; in other words, that the 
Gospels are to be decidedly preferred to the rest of the New 
Testament, as an exponent of the true Christian doctrine. But 
this is an illegitimate position. There would be more plausi- 
bility in it, if Christ had left us a history of his life and 
utterances recorded by himself. But inasmuch as this is not 
the case, the Gospels stand upon the same footing as the other 
books. When, therefore, men undertake to contrast the doctrines 
of Christ with those of his followers, they seem to forget that 



334 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

we learn of Christ's doctrines only through his followers. If 
the general fallibility of the apostles and other disciples of 
Christ is regarded as a reason for giving to their statements 
only a qualified confidence, then it may equally well be made 
a reason for distrusting their accuracy in reporting the language 
and doings of Jesus Christ. The Epistles, no less than the 
histories, profess to set forth what Christ is and has done. 

This distinction between the Gospels and the Epistles is 
usually made with special reference to Paul. He is contrasted 
with the Evangelists, as one who introduced new features into 
Christianity. This is sometimes argued as a merit, sometimes 
as a demerit. In the latter case, his doctrines are sharply 
condemned as being in many respects opposed to those of 
Christ, or at least as something new, not found in the Gospels. 
But such critics apparently forget that Paul's principal Epistles 
were written before the Gospels were, and that, though he had 
not been a disciple of Jesus, he had abundant opportunity (even 
if no stress is laid on the direct revelations which he claimed 
to have received) to learn from the disciples about Jesus and 
his doctrines. We do not know that Mark or Luke had any 
personal intercourse with Christ. Their Gospels, therefore, are 
exposed to the same charge that is brought against Paul's 
writings, namely, that they are a report at second hand. There 
is also strong reason for judging that much of the First Gospel 
could not have been written by an eye-witness, though the 
tradition that Matthew wrote it be adopted as substantially 
correct. And however firmly we may hold to the Johannean 
authorship of the Fourth Gospel, it is yet a fact that it has 
been vigorously and plausibly contested, whereas the genuineness 
of Paul's principal Epistles is as good as unquestioned. The 
attempt, therefore, to set up the Gospels against the Epistles, 
as presenting to us Christianity in a purer form, rests on a 
false assumption. We must affirm that there is an altogether 
peculiar authority in Christ; but we cannot distinguish any 
parts of the New Testament as surpassing all other parts in the 
same way that Christ surpasses his disciples ; for every part of 
the book was written by his disciples. We can only say, in 
general, that the New Testament gives us a portraiture of Christ 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 335 

as he impressed himself on his immediate followers. We must 
take the portraiture as it is, and make the best of it. 

When, for example, some persons contrast Christ's references 
to the Old Testament with those of Paul, and find the latter to 
be more or less fanciful and rabbinical, and Christ's not at all of 
this nature, what shall we say ? In the first place, the differ- 
ence, if it exist at all, is much smaller than it is often repre- 
sented as being. Indeed it may plausibly be argued that there 
is nothing of this sort in Paul's writings which cannot be paral- 
leled in the reported utterances of Christ. 1 But besides this it 
is to be considered that what is reported as from Christ is but 
a small part of what he said. We are told that he opened the 
apostles' mind, that they might understand the Scriptures (Luke 
xxiv. 45). We have no right to presume that what may hap- 
pen to strike us unpleasantly in the apostolic interpretations 
of Scripture is certainly not sanctioned by Christ's authority, 
simply because we do not find it beforehand in the Gospels. 
There is, on the contrary, a general presumption that, as the 
apostles were in constant communion with him during his 
ministry and received instruction from him concerning his work 
and his truth, they must have become indoctrinated with his 
view of the Old Testament in its relation to him. Nor can an 
exception be made of Paul. We cannot press his claim that he 
did not receive the gospel from the apostles to the extent of 
supposing that he got absolutely nothing from them. What 
was he talking about with Peter during those fifteen days when 
he visited him at Jerusalem (Gal. i. 18) ? Or if we press this 
claim to the extreme, we must remember that over against it is 
his claim that he received the gospel directly from Christ ; and 
how much that revelation contained of specific instruction con- 
cerning the interpretation of the Old Testament, no one can 
affirm. 

On the whole, then, the conclusion must be that, though 
Christ was radically superior to his disciples, this fact cannot 
be made use of in order to discredit any part of the "New Testa- 

1 Dean Burgon (Inspiration, etc., pp. 134 sg.) refers to Luke xx. 37, 38, 
Matt. xxii. 41-46, and John x. 34-36, to show that the criticisms made on 
Paul might with equal justice be made on Christ. 



336 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

ment, unless in equal degree the whole is discredited. But if 
the whole is discredited, that is, if no part of it can be trusted in 
its representation of Christ, we are left without any certain 
knowledge of him at all ; and in that case it is idle to hold up 
his authority as over against the Scriptural account of him. 
Every attempt to distinguish the pure and original Christianity 
from the apostolic additions to it or corruptions of it. gives us 
simply the opinion of the individual critic ; and this opinion is 
founded on the reports of the very men whose trustworthiness 
is denied. The ultimate result of the various efforts to discover 
the genuine Christ and the pure gospel is of course a multitude 
of gospels all derived from the New Testament writings. 

Still less can one hope to reach the unadulterated truth of 
Christianity by any arbitrary reconstruction of the Canon, or by 
deciding in his own mind what books of the New Testament shall 
be recognized as representing the truth as it is in Jesus. Such 
a procedure is opposed to all sound principles of historical 
and critical evidence. The New Testament as a whole must be 
taken as the source from which is to be derived the true con- 
ception of what Christianity originally was, and was intended 
to be. And the more it is insisted that Christianity is essen- 
tially a new life-force rather than a mere system of propositions 
or dogmas, the more important does it become to call into requi- 
sition every part of the original documentary records of the 
history of Christ's life and of its workings on the primitive 
Church. Whereas a petty and arbitrary criticism would under- 
take to say that only one type of conception is to be adopted as 
regulative of our judgment, a broader and more truthful view 
would rather emphasize the need and importance of a variety in 
the sources of information, in order that the picture of the true 
gospel may be made as complete as possible. In such a search 
one will not be alarmed by contrasts or even apparent contra- 
dictions. He will not be disturbed, but rather helped, when 
he sees how different in many respects John's portraiture of the 
Kedeemer's life and words is from that of Mark or Luke. He 
will not set Paul against John, or John against Paul, but will 
put the two together as supplementing one another. He will 
make use of every detail of both the histories and the Epistles 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 337 

in his effort to obtain an accurate and comprehensive view of 
what Christian truth really is. But this very fact, that one 
must put together and compare, suggests another reflection : 

5. The religious experience and insight of Christians has an 
important and decisive function. The regulative authority of 
the Scriptures does not execute itself. Their authority is no 
authority till their meaning is understood. And what they mean 
must be determined by men in the exercise of their own 
faculties. Christians, though as Christians they cannot freely 
set aside, correct, or supplement the Scriptures, must interpret 
them. The new life which was brought into the world by 
Jesus Christ is an expansive one, propagating itself from 
generation to generation and from race to race. In itself it 
remains essentially the same. And living Christians must 
have more or less definite opinions respecting the vital features 
and truths of the Christian religion. These opinions cannot be 
formulated and deposited in any verbal statement in such a 
way as to have a meaning and validity independent of the 
active judgment of the living Christian. Statements, creeds, 
the New Testament itself, mean nothing to him except as he 
individually, by the exercise of his own Christian powers of 
apprehension, attaches a meaning to them. Every one, there- 
fore, is, to a greater or less extent, an interpreter of the 
Scriptures. And in this interpretation two things in particular 
must be taken into account. 

(a) Christians in their interpretation of the Scriptures must 
distinguish between what is fundamental and universal, on the 
one hand, and what is incidental or temporary, on the other. 
They may differ from one another on the question, what is 
essential and what is incidental; but every one makes dis- 
tinctions, and attaches greater importance to some portions of 
Holy Writ than to others. And since no explicit rule can be 
found in the Bible itself, each one must follow the leadings of 
his own judgment. In many cases, or even the most, this 
judgment may be little more than a trustful acceptance of the 
distinction which others have already made; but still the 
distinction is one which has been made, and must be made, by 
Christians, and that, too, with no infallible inspiration to guide 

22 



338 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

them. In a general way there is substantial agreement as to 
what the most vital features of the gospel are. It is agreed 
that the main purpose of the Christian revelation was a spiritual 
one : Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. All 
the particular features of the evangelical history and teachings are 
to be viewed in relation to this grand central feature of Christ's 
mission, — the regeneration and purification of man's moral nature. 

But the gospel, while it aims to save all, and is therefore 
essentially the same to all, must adapt itself to each man, and so, 
in a sense, be a special gospel to every individual. It must be 
adapted to different nations and different ages. Consequently it 
cannot be rigidly and minutely defined and bounded by any one 
man or group of men, in such a way as to overlook the peculiarities 
of others. A certain degree of indeflniteness and flexibility must, 
therefore, be assumed as characterizing it. What Paul said of 
himself, as the preacher of the gospel, may be said of the gospel 
itself : it becomes all things to all men, that by all means it may 
save some. Consequently only that which is of universal appli- 
cation can in the strictest sense be regarded as essential in the 
gospel. Principles, precepts, promises, and offers of a general 
sort are to be sought for as the underlying substance of the 
scheme of redemption, while the particular application and de- 
velopment of them depends more or less upon the necessities, 
temperament, and circumstances of the individual. 

Here, then, the Christian common sense must be acknowledged 
to have a legitimate function : it must judge how far the Bibli- 
cal word is to be pressed in its literalness. It must judge, for 
example, whether literal compliance with the command to give 
to every one that asks (Matt. v. 42) would best fulfil the real 
spirit of the command. It must judge whether the injunction 
to anoint one's self before fasting is not to be interpreted in the 
light of the customs of the time in which Jesus lived. It must 
judge whether Paul's advice respecting marriage and the de- 
meanor of women is to be regarded as determined in its form 
somewhat by the sentiments of the age and the local circum- 
stances of those particularly addressed, and therefore not neces- 
sarily applicable in all its strictness to the churches of the 
present day. This judgment may err either on the side of exces- 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 339 

sive literalness, or on the side of excessive freedom ; but when 
the question presents itself to him, the Christian must form a 
judgment. In any case, however, even though one judge that 
a Biblical precept or statement received a shaping and shading 
from the local and temporary circumstances which called it forth, 
yet that judgment does not involve a charge of error, unless it 
goes so far as to say that the local and temporary circumstances 
themselves called for something different. 

(h) The second task which the interpretation of the Bible 
imposes on the Christian is that of harmonizing the representa- 
tions of the different parts and authors. Christianity is a unit, — 
a self-consistent thing. It must be such at least to every sincere 
Christian. Yet apparent differences or contradictions in the 
statement of Christian principles, or in the living illustration of 
the Christian spirit, will be found in the original records of 
Christian life and thinking. Particularly this function of recon- 
ciliation relates to the harmonizing of the utterances of the 
different writers of the New Testament. 

The original recipients and transmitters of the Christian reve- 
lation were men, having each his own peculiarities of mind and 
character. Consequently each one's conception and representa- 
tion of the divine revelation must have borne the mark of his 
own individuality ; and therefore the different men could not 
but present different phases of the common treasure of revealed 
truth. Over against the older method of interpretation which 
by use of the " analogy of faith " tended to obscure or ignore the 
differences of the several authors of the sacred books, the science 
of Biblical theology aims to recognize, and perhaps tends to 
exaggerate, these differences. Now, just where differences pass 
over into discrepancies, and discrepancies into contradictions, it 
is difficult to determine; but the abandonment of the older 
theory of verbal and mechanical inspiration requires us to assume 
that each Biblical writer was in a proper sense an author, writing 
out of his own religious apprehensions and experience, and that 
accordingly, not only with regard to incidental matters, but 
with regard to the truths and facts of revelation, the personal 
peculiarities of the writers more or less affected their conceptions 
and representations. 



340 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

What attitude now does Christian thought take with reference 
to this feature of the Scriptures ? Here, as in the case of dis- 
crepancies of a more external character, it is obvious at all events 
that the distinctively Christian mind does not predispose one 
to look for and find coutradictions and errors in the religious 
and moral teachings of the Bible. The Christian, while he will 
not, if truth-loving, shut his eyes to plain facts, is not naturally 
inclined to emphasize these differences, but to reconcile them. 
It was a normal impulse which led the older theologians to con- 
struct doctrinal systems whose aim was to harmonize and com- 
bine all parts and statements of the Biblical books, whatever 
may be thought of their assumption that those books are all 
absolutely and equally faultless. It is a legitimate desire of the 
Christian to obtain a comprehensive view of the plan of redemp- 
tion, and to make all the parts of the scheme, and all the utter- 
ances of the human organs of revelation, work harmoniously 
together. But it should not be forgotten that this effort to 
harmonize and systematize is itself a movement and an impulse 
of the Christian spirit. There would be no motive for it and no 
interest in it, unless there were antecedently a Christian life, sen- 
timent, type of feeling and thinking, which has continuously 
flowed forth from the original fountain of the Christian revelation, 
and which finds in the Scriptures the most original and authentic 
statement of that on which Christian belief and life are founded. 

With reference, then, to both the above-mentioned points the 
Christian must, from the nature of the case, exercise a judgment. 
If there are apparent inconsistencies needing to be harmonized, 
it is the Christian mind that must do the work. And in order 
to do it one must adopt some guiding principle of interpretation. 
If two Biblical writers seem to be at variance with one another, 
the expositor who desires to bring them into harmony must 
somehow fix upon a standard of truth according to which the 
two are- to be judged. The more strict his theory of inspiration 
may be, the more urgently is he impelled to search for some 
canon of judgment that shall regulate the process of reconcilia- 
tion. And in deciding on this canon he is left to himself or to 
the judgment of those Christians in whom, for whatever reasons, 
he has the most confidence. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 341 

The necessity which is put upon Christians of exercising a 
judgment relative to these matters is most strikingly evinced 
in the very fact that even as regards questions of the highest 
doctrinal and practical consequence various views are enter- 
tained. Kespecting the attributes of God, the nature of Christ, 
the relative importance of divine and human agency in salva- 
tion, the nature of justifying faith, the relation of this life 
to the next ; respecting the true idea of the earthly church, 
its authority, polity, and sacraments; respecting moral duties, 
such as forgiveness, veracity, self-defense, oaths, charitable aid 
to the poor; — respecting these things conscientious Christians 
come to different results, all professing too to be following 
the same Scriptures. The variant views may all be fairly de- 
fended from the Scriptures. Thus, the divine sovereignty 
is certainly taught there ; but so is human responsibility. 
How they are related; which shall be regarded as outrank- 
ing the other in religious importance ; or whether both are 
to be somehow reconciled through some third principle, — 
these are questions on which the Christian world has come to 
no agreement. Where the Old Testament seems in general to 
differ from the New, as, for example, respecting the lex talionis, 
the Christian interpreter must regard the New Testament as 
being the superior authority. But when the New Testament 
seems to countenance opposing views, the interpreter must 
either show that there is no real, though there may be a formal, 
difference ; or else he must regard one passage as furnishing the 
canon by which the other is to be interpreted. 

In general, it is clear that the different phases of Christian 
truth do not receive in different parts of the New Testament 
the same relative prominence ; or they are even made to come 
into apparent disagreement. There is no doubt that James 
emphasizes the duty of a strict morality, and seems to depre- 
ciate the faith which Paul emphasizes as the central thing. 
Unquestionably John lays stress on the divinity of Jesus 
Christ, while Matthew lays stress on his descent from David 
and his Messianic calling. Or the same writer may seem to 
contradict himself, as, for example, when John at one time 
(1 John i. 8) says that Christians deceive themselves if they 



342 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

say they have no sin, whereas at another (iii. 9) he affirms posi- 
tively that those who are born again do not and even cannot 
sin. But is there a real contradiction or only an apparent 
one ? Must we adopt the maxim that the Bible is absolutely 
free from error and self-contradiction ? Or shall we admit that it 
is more or less imperfect in some of its subordinate features ? 
These are questions which must be answered by the Christian 
in the exercise of his own sanctified common sense. They 
are not answered for him by any authority palpably supreme 
and beyond appeal. With reference to them we may observe : 

6. The general theory that the Bible is absolutely perfect 
and infallible does not solve the particular questions respecting 
which differences of opinion exist. From the general proposi- 
tion, that the Bible is infallible, one may infer that all apparent 
contradictions and errors may somehow be explained away. 
Somehow, but how ? Where is the rule of interpretation to be 
found ? Little or no help is obtained by saying, with the au- 
thors of the Westminster Confession, that " the infallible rule 
of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself." 1 If the 
Bible, like a living Pope, could issue an authoritative and un- 
mistakable utterance, whenever its meaning is dark or disputed, 
and thus remove all doubts and differences, there would indeed 
be an end of all controversy. But so long as this is not the 
case, the statement that the Bible infallibly interprets itself 
must be regarded as more rhetorical than serviceable. Doubt- 
less in an important sense the Bible is self-interpreting; one 
part helps us to understand another, — as may be said of any 
other book. Bat when it is said that the Bible furnishes an 
infallible rule of iuterpretation, we cannot but ask how a rule 
can be infallible which, in point of fact, when applied by dif- 
ferent Christian interpreters, yields discordant results. The 
infallibility of the rule is of no use unless it can be infallibly 
applied ; and how this is to be done we can never know, until 
w T e find another infallible rule by which we can infallibly deter- 
mine how this first infallible rule is to be infallibly used by 
fallible Christians. 

Practically, then, there would seem to be little difference 

1 Chap. i. art. ix. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 343 

between those who hold the strict theory of the absolute infal- 
libility of every part of the Bible, but cannot agree in their 
understanding of it, and those who admit the possibility or even 
reality of incidental errors, and yet hold that the Scriptures give 
us an essentially truthful account of w T hat God has revealed con- 
cerning his character, will, and redeeming work. Both bring to 
the study of the Scriptures certain preconceptions derived from 
religious and philosophical training, and both may come to the 
same general result as to the essential truths of revealed religion. 
But those who hold the stricter theory of Biblical infallibility 
are led by their preconceptions — their " Christian conscious- 
ness " — to put a strain upon those parts of Scripture which 
seem not to harmonize with their system ; while the others are 
led by their preconceptions to look upon such parts as of subor- 
dinate importance, and as being affected by the imperfection to 
which all human productions are liable. The stricter school 
may accuse the others of unsettling the foundations of faith, if 
they admit the possibility of any error in Holy Writ ; while the 
latter may urge that the foundations of faith are in danger of 
being unsettled, if the faith is made to rest on a theory of Bibli- 
cal infallibility of which there is no cogent proof, and which can 
be maintained only by violent distortions of the obvious mean- 
ing of Scriptural language. 

Still it may be contended that, if the strict theory of the in- 
fallibility of the Bible is relaxed, a flood-gate is opened for the 
introduction of the wildest vagaries and conceits in judging of 
Biblical history and teaching. If any part of it can be adjudged 
faulty, what is to hinder every part from being in turn denounced 
as unworthy of confidence? The answer is that we are now 
dealing with Christian judgments of the Bible ; and no real 
Christian can do otherwise than find the Bible in its general 
drift a truthful account of a divine revelation. No doubt, it may 
seem extremely desirable to be able to hold that there is abso- 
lutely no error in the Scriptures, even though we may not be 
able to agree as to what is error and what is truth. But at all 
events the theory of Biblical infallibility cannot accomplish any 
useful purpose, unless it is itself well established. With refer- 
ence to this point we may at least remark that — 



344 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

7. Every theory of the infallibility of the Scriptures must be 
rejected which is contradicted by the Scriptures themselves. 
We may go further, and maintain that no theory of Biblical in- 
fallibility is susceptible of proof. The Bible does not affirm its 
own infallibility. Even if we press to the utmost such language 
as Ps. xix. 7, "The law of the Lord is perfect," we cannot 
make it cover the whole Bible, to say nothing of the somewhat 
lax manner in which this epithet is used, as, for example, where 
Noah (Gen. vi. 9), Jacob (Gen. xxv. 27, vide Marg. of K. V.), 
and Job (Job i. 1) are called u perfect." The assertion that the 
Old Testament is inspired of God (2 Tim. iii. 16) also falls short 
of an affirmation of absolute infallibility. 

But more than this : the Bible not only does not affirm its own 
perfectness, it affirms its own imperfectness. Especially is the 
Old Testament declared to be defective. It is little less than 
self-evident that, if the Old Testament revelation had been 
ideally perfect, there would have been no need of another. It 
lies on the surface of the New Testament that the Mosaic 
dispensation was in some sense insufficient, temporary, and 
defective. The New Testament abounds in utterances which 
imply or assert this. The whole matter is succinctly stated in 
Heb. viii. 7, " If that first covenant had been faultless, then 
would no place have been sought for a second." In view of 
so explicit a statement as this it is almost incredible that 
Christians should ever have undertaken to treat the Old Tes- 
tament as of equal authority with the New. And yet the 
motive is obvious. If the Old Testament contains a divine 
revelation, it seems like an impeachment of the divine power, 
wisdom, or veracity, to say that the revelation, or the record 
of it, is faulty. But here in one of the books of the New 
Covenant itself we find this flatly affirmed. And what is here 
thus declared in general terms is implied everywhere else. 
Jesus' answer to the question respecting divorce (Matt. xix. 8), 
in which he affirms that Moses permitted easy divorce as a 
concession to the hardness of the Jews' hearts, gives us a 
specific example of the general fact. And this shows, moreover, 
that the faultiness is something positive, — that the Mosaic law 
was in some particulars not merely defective in the sense of 






THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 345 

being germinal or prophetic, but defective in the sense of 
requiring amendment or abolition. 

There are numerous questions which spring up in this con- 
nection, — questions especially concerning the character of the 
morality of the Old Testament, the accuracy of its prophecies, the 
truthfulness and symmetry of its theology, to say nothing of 
the correctness of its representations of historical and scientific 
matters. If we compare, for example, Ps. lxix. 21-28 with 
the account of Christ's crucifixion, we find that the Psalmist, 
after charging his enemies with giving him vinegar to drink, 
supplicates God to pour out his indignation on them ; while 
Jesus, whose similar experience is regarded as typified by this 
(John xix. 28), begs God to forgive his enemies. If we compare 
this with Christ's own comment on the lex talionis (Matt. v. 38- 
46), it is impossible to pronounce the spirit of the psalmist to 
be a model for ourselves. If, however, on Christ's own warrant 
we may charge faultiness on one feature of the Old Testament, 
what shall hinder us from extending the charge over other 
features ? But in this case, in what sense can we retain faith 
in the Old Testament economy as a genuine revelation of God ? 
Be the answer what it may, it should not be made without 
recognizing the undeniable fact that, while the New Testament 
in general, and Christ in particular, explicitly assert the faulti- 
ness of the Old Testament, they also with equal or greater clear- 
ness assert that the Mosaic economy was a genuine revelation 
from God. The two affirmations must stand together. 

Our Saviour tells us that the imperfectness of the Mosaic law 
was on account of the necessity of accommodating it to the con- 
dition and needs of the Jewish people. What he says respecting 
divorce must doubtless be said respecting many other things. 
No one would now seriously propose to enact all the civil laws 
of Moses identically as they stand in the Pentateuch, still less, 
to insist on the enforcement of the ceremonial law. In the 
Sermon on the Mount, though Christ begins by declaring that 
he does not come to destroy the law, he yet gives to it a higher 
and more spiritual sense than his hearers could ever have had, 
and such as would not naturally have suggested itself to those 
who lived under the law. It is manifest that the accommoda- 



346 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

tion spoken of by our Lord consisted largely in leaving existing 
customs essentially unchanged, even when perfection of char- 
acter and social condition required a change. The laws concern- 
ing slavery and polygamy were given for those to whom these 
institutions were familiar. The laws aimed to mitigate the evils 
of the institutions, but did not undertake at once to abolish 
them. There was an apparent sanction of practices which were 
gradually given up by the Jews who lived under these laws, and 
which are inconsistent with the spirit of many of the other pre- 
cepts of the same code. Indeed the Mosaic law contains the 
highest rules of conduct and character. The commands to love 
God with all the heart, and our neighbor as ourselves, which 
Jesus pronounced to be the greatest of all the commandments, 
are quoted from the Pentateuch (Deut. vi. 5 ; Lev. xix. 18) ; and 
we find there, besides, the precept, " Be ye holy, for I am holy " 
(Lev. xi. 44, xix. 2), — which seems to lift us up to the very 
summit of spiritual life. Is there not, then, an inconsistency 
between such precepts and those laws which sanction or tolerate 
practices which we must regard as marking a low moral, social, 
and political state ? And can that be a divinely given or di- 
vinely sanctioned system which contains such an inconsistency ? 
The feeling which underlies such questions is that whatever 
comes from God must be absolutely perfect and faultless, — in 
other words, that an accommodation of the divine law to human 
weakness is impossible, being inconsistent with the holiness and 
immutability of God himself. But the same authority which 
warrants us in believing in the divinity of the Old Testament 
revelation warrants us also in asserting that there was this ac- 
commodation. And there need be no difficulty in admitting 
this principle as a feature of a supernatural revelation. To say 
that God adapts his communications and legislation to the 
capacities and circumstances of his creatures is not to impeach 
either his wisdom or his holiness. It is a universal principle 
that parents and teachers, in training the young, must, in order 
to be successful, adapt their method of administering instruction 
and commands to the capacities and peculiarities of the pupils. 
Many things may be winked at in one child which need to be 
rebuked in another. Slow and patient use of symbols and 






THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 347 

illustrations are required for some, while others spring readily to 
the apprehension of abstract truth. In order to make a correct 
impression on the whole, a representation must often be made 
which, judged by a strict scientific standard, would be incorrect. 
Correctness of impression is more important than mere correct- 
ness of statement. It is universally conceded that in our 
conceptions of the Divine Being and character certain anthropo- 
morphisms must enter in, even though we may be morally 
certain that, in a higher state of existence and with different 
faculties of apprehension, we should form different conceptions. 
In so far as this inaccuracy of conception is made necessary by 
the limitation of man's intellectual and moral nature, it must 
be taken into account also by God himself, if he would make 
a revelation of himself. The principle of accommodation 
or concession, in a revelation which is to be adapted to the 
actual condition and necessities of men, seems, then, to be 
indispensable. 1 

Notwithstanding these concessions, however, there is to be 
recognized a very substantial truth in the common affirmation 
that the Bible is a perfect and infallible rule of faith and prac- 
tice. The truth may be stated in the following form : 

8. The Bible is perfectly adapted to accomplish the end for 
which it was made, when used by one who is in sympathy with 
that end. The sweeping statement that the Bible is perfect 
requires in any case that one should understand in what sense 
the term " perfect " is used. If we can say that the Bible is as 
nearly perfect as under the circumstances it was possible for it 
to be, this ought to satisfy any reasonable demand. Since a 
revelation had to be given to imperfect men, possessing imper- 
fect powers of apprehension; since it could be communicated 
only through human media, and had to be adapted at first to 
those more immediately addressed, — it was necessarily deficient 
in that sort of perfectness which it might have had if these con- 
ditions had been different. If the media had been infallible, 
if men's powers of spiritual apprehension had been perfect, no 
doubt the revelation might have been more absolutely faultless. 

1 Cf. J. L. Mozley, Ruling Ideas in Early Ages ; Newman Smyth, Morality 
of the Old Testament ; G. F. Wright, Dicine Authority of the Bible, pp. 162 sq. 



348 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

But in that case it would not have been needed. It was because 
men were imperfect and sinful that a special manifestation of 
divine grace was necessary. 

But what is meant in any case by saying that a book is per- 
fect ? Even when a book treats of one of the exact sciences, as 
of some branch of mathematics, the epithet "perfect" can be 
applied only in a loose sense. The book may be confidently 
pronounced free from all false statements, and yet not be per- 
fect in the sense that it treats the subject in the absolutely best 
way. It may omit some things which it would be well to insert, 
or it may contain some things which had better have been 
omitted. If the subject of the book is not one of the exact 
sciences, it is still more difficult to determine when it can be 
called perfect. No one supposes that a strictly perfect treatise 
on physiology, or chemistry, or geology, or even astronomy, has 
ever yet been produced. And still more impracticable is it to 
attain a perfect treatment of psychology or ethics. But the 
Bible is a book which is at almost the furthest remove from a 
treatise on an exact science. Neither the subjects treated of 
nor the method of treatment permits the application of any 
simple objective standard of perfection. It is a heterogeneous 
work. It treats no subject in a scientific manner. It deals 
with themes which transcend human comprehension. It ad- 
dresses the sensibilities and the conscience, rather than the 
intellect; and the appeal is for the most part indirect rather 
than direct. In it examples take the place of precept, and 
history the place of analysis. It embodies the sentiments and 
conceptions of very different men. It exhibits an advancing 
development of divine truth, a gradual execution of divine 
purposes, rather than a consummated system. It gives God's 
thoughts as reflected in the mirror of his human agents. 

A book may be perfect in a negative or in a positive sense. 
To be perfect in the negative sense of being free from erroneous 
statements would be of itself a very meagre excellence. Such 
freedom might belong to a book comparatively inane and 
worthless. Inasmuch as the purpose of a divine revelation is 
the production of spiritual renovation in men, that record of 
the revelation might be properly called perfect which is best 






THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 349 

fitted to accomplish this purpose. This is perfection in the 
positive sense. It may indeed be contended that a Bible might 
have been produced which would do a better work than the one 
we have. It may, for example, be thought that, if some of the 
genealogical matter were left out, and some of Paul's lost 
epistles were put in, the Bible would assuredly be a better book, 
and better fitted to do its work. But all such speculations 
prove nothing more than the individual opinions of the pro- 
mulgators of them. The only certain thing about the matter 
is that in a vast number of instances the Bible has accomplished 
its purpose : it has made men " wise unto salvation." 

But, it may be objected, in many other instances this purpose 
has not been accomplished ; multitudes have heard or read the 
Word of God and been made no better, or have even been 
offended and injured by it. But the obvious answer is that, 
as the Bible cannot act mechanically, and the effect it produces 
must depend on the spiritual attitude of the reader, it can 
perfectly accomplish its purpose only in so far as its message is 
addressed to a receptive spirit. He who feels his need of divine 
mercy and guidance finds in the recorded revelation that which 
perfectly answers to his needs. He who comes to the Scriptures 
without such a sense of need is not made wise unto salvation 
by them ; and he would not be, however perfect might be the 
form of the message. Such a one would find fault with the 
most faultless book. 

In short, every doctrine concerning the authority or infalli- 
bility of the Scriptures must take into account the persons to 
whom they are addressed and the end which they aim at. To 
call the Bible perfect, irrespective of its relation to those who 
use it, is like calling an article of food perfect, apart from its fit- 
ness to support physical vigor. The same food which is good for 
one man may be bad for another. In general, certain articles of 
food have been found to be wholesome and useful. Those which 
in the greatest number of cases seem to be best adapted to 
nourish the human system may in a loose sense be called per- 
fect. But for many persons food which for the most would be 
called inferior may be better than that which is generally called 
the best. 



350 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

In like manner the Bible is to be judged according to its fit- 
ness to do its work. Not every part of it is equally adapted to 
every individual, or to the same individual at different stages of 
his spiritual life. What to some may seem the most useless or 
questionable parts of the book often prove to be effective in 
leading others into the way of life. 1 And no one will be led by 
it into the truth who comes to it in the wrong way. If one is 
hardened to religious influences, or is filled with captiousness and 
self-sufficiency, the Bible cannot do its proper work on him. 
Only one who is seeking life and salvation will find it to be a 
perfect guide. Only such a one finds and appropriates the deeper 
religious lessons and stimulus which the book furnishes. The 
more he is illumined by the Spirit of God, the more does he 
find of this fulness of spiritual instruction. He finds it even 
in that which to the light-minded and the scoffing furnishes 
occasion for offense or for ridicule. He finds even in that which 
shows traces of the human weakness of the sacred writer a 
religious help, so that the imperfect and the fallible may itself 
become, in its connection with the general burden of the divine 
message, an infallible guide, — a guide which does not mislead, 
but helps one onward towards that perfection which it is the 
object of revelation to produce. In short, the Bible is perfect 
and infallible, for the purpose which revelation aims to accom- 
plish, to every one who in using it is led by the Holy Spirit. 
It cannot be infallible to those of a different spirit; for in their 
case it fails of its chief end. An abstract, absolute, ideal infalli- 
bility, that is to be defined irrespective of the practical end to 
be attained by the infallibility, would be worthless in itself, and 
would moreover after all forever be indefinable. 

One who on a clear summer day looks from the Swiss vil- 
lage of Beatenberg upon the view there spread before him, — 
the malachite green waters of Lake Thun two thousand feet 
sheer below him ; the steep undulating slopes between, clothed 
with grass and groves ; the ranges of mountains beyond, overlap- 

1 E. g., Joseph Rabinowitz of Kischenev, Russia, who was converted from 
Judaism to Christianity by reading the New Testament, and has since labored 
amongst the Jews in that place with great success, was greatly influenced at 
the outset by the genealogical tables in Matthew and Luke. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 351 

ping one another, till at the furthest and highest point the land- 
scape is terminated by the snow-clad monarchs of the Bernese 
Alps, — he who beholds this scene, with its manifold and con- 
tinually varying shades of richest color, may well exclaim, 
" This is a perfect view." But a captious critic might object 
that many a tree is defective or abnormal in shape ; that many 
a chalet is rude or dilapidated ; that the pure green of the 
lake is sometimes marred by the turbid waters of the inflow- 
ing streams ; that here and there a different contour of the 
mountain outline would be more according to artistic ideas of 
beauty ; or that a more unbroken snow covering on the lofty 
summits would enhance the charm of the scene. But he who 
looks at the scene with an eye sensitive to the power of true 
beauty and grandeur will be unmoved by such petty carpings. 
Taking in the grand whole, with its fascinating combinations of 
light and shade, of height and depth, of form and color, he will 
still say of it, " This is a perfect view." 

And so he who looks at the Bible, with its manifold pictures 
from the history of divine revelations, with its matchless por- 
traitures of character, with its disclosures of the depths of hu- 
man depravity and human necessities, with its fervid effusions 
of religious feeling, with its pungent appeals to the conscience, 
and above all with its disclosures of the holiness and majesty 
of God and the riches of his redeeming love, — he who looks at 
the book with feelings alive to the realities and necessities and 
possibilities of man's spiritual nature, will say of it, " This is a 
perfect book." It presents a manifoldness of elements which in 
their combination blend together into one grand, impressive 
picture, stimulating, elevating, purifying. If a sharp-eyed critic 
complains of defects and mistakes, and points out wherein the 
several parts might be improved, he who reads it with a sense 
of religious need will doubt the power of mere human acumen 
to reconstruct it for the better, and will say of it that it is a 
book unique in its power to meet one's deepest wants ; that it 
alone, among all the books of the world, perfectly fulfils the end 
of communicating and preserving God's revealed truth, and of 
impressing it upon men. 

But the objection may be here raised, that by this mode of 



352 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

conceiving the matter the real regulative guide is made to be 
not the Word of God, but the human spirit. As the thoughtful 
man can find " sermons in stones, books in the running brooks, 
and good in everything," so the religious man may find sugges- 
tions and lessons in those parts of the Bible which are intrinsi- 
cally of no special worth. In such a case is it not, after all, the 
Christian mind which puts the significance into those things 
that in themselves and to the more unreflective have no higher 
significance at all ? Are we not lending countenance to the old 
objection, that the Bible can be made to teach whatever one 
chooses to make it teach ? Is not the ' Christian consciousness " 
thus, after all, made the supreme source of religious opinion ? 

The objection is easily removed. The fundamental and essen- 
tial elements of Christian truth are of divine communication. 
Christianity, as we have before observed, is not a product of the 
natural consciousness, intuition, or reflection of man ; it is a 
revelation. And if Christianity itself is thus essentially a di- 
vine, and not a human, product, the record of it cannot be 
a thing having no intrinsic significance, and be capable of mean- 
ing whatever any one may choose to make it mean. On the 
contrary, Christian experience and Christian thought being an 
outflow from the revelation whose most original and authentic 
expression is in the Scriptures, it would be absurd to say that 
the Christian mind can legitimately make those Scriptures mean 
anything and everything. They not only have a meaning of 
their own, but they are normative and regulative for Christian 
experience and thought itself. It is the business of the Chris- 
tian to find out what they do mean, not to say what they shall 
mean. They are the perennial source from which Christendom 
must draw its knowledge and conception of w T hat the Christian 
revelation conveyed and involved. 1 

When, then, the endless variety of opinions and forms of 
doctrine which men profess to derive from the same Bible is 
adduced as proof that its meaning does not control, but is con- 
trolled by, its readers, it is to be replied that this objection is 
pertinent only as directed against allegorical and purely fanciful 
interpretations of Scripture. And even these are governed to a 
1 Cf. Dorner, Christian Ethics, p. 45. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 353 

large extent by the distinctively Christian conceptions which 
are common to all Christians. Nothing, however, is really legiti- 
mate in the interpretation of the Bible but an honest effort to 
find out what the written word was intended to mean. That dif- 
ferent men should come to different results, is not strange. That 
certain features of the Biblical books should sometimes be made 
unduly prominent, and certain other more important ones should 
be overlooked ; or that different Christians should differ from one 
another as to what the relative importance and right proportions 
of Scriptural truth really are, — this, too, can be easily under- 
stood. That through the influence of early education and biasing 
predilections the obvious meaning of certain Scriptures should 
be distorted, is also natural and intelligible. It is clear, too, that 
there is no rule of interpretation which can lay claim to be the 
only correct and authoritative one. In their methods and in 
their results Christians do, and doubtless long will, disagree more 
or less with one another. If these differences, as we may hope, 
shall gradually disappear ; if there shall be developed out of the 
present divergence a universal accord in religious doctrine, — 
this will not be a general agreement arrived at irrespective of 
the intrinsic meaning of the Scriptures, but rather it will come 
as the result of a more accurate understanding of what that 
intrinsic meaning is. Any other view would require us to 
assume that Christian thought and feeling can arrive at religious 
truth independently of the Christian revelation. If the Chris- 
tian mind can develop truth which contradicts or supplants that 
which is contained in the records of divine revelation, then 
the conclusion must be that Christian thinking is a more author- 
itative revealer of truth than Christ. But this, of course, is 
equivalent to the denial of the Christian revelation itself. If 
there has not been introduced into the world, once for all, an 
authoritative and ample fountain of religious instruction and 
religious life, then the alternative conclusion is that all religion 
is a phenomenon of evolution ; that the so-called inspiration 
of to-day, though possibly superior to that of yesterday, is des- 
tined to be supplanted by that of to-morrow ; that all theology 
is a mere matter of changing opinion, and all religion a shifting 
mood of feeling, regulated by no standard of truth or of right. 

23 



354 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

The conclusion of the matter, then, must be that man's reli- 
gious sense has indeed a part to play, but that it is not the part 
of originating a sure knowledge of God, still less, the part of 
originating the truths of Christianity. Its part, so far as reve- 
lation or the record of revelation is concerned, is to apprehend 
it. This apprehension, as time passes, and Christian experience 
is enlarged, may grow clearer ; there may be a development and 
progress in the right understanding of the deeper meaning of 
the Scriptures ; but there cannot be a development which will 
supersede the Scriptures or essentially add to them. What 
that deeper meaning is which lies below the surface, and is 
gained only through experience and devout meditation, must of 
course be left indeterminate. Certain fanciful and arbitrary 
modes of exegesis may indeed be, and for the most part are 
already, discarded. But there is a possibility, in abandoning 
capricious interpretations, of pushing a literal interpretation to 
the extreme. A certain degree of spiritualizing is legitimate ; 
the Scriptures themselves set us the example, and suggest the 
general principles which are to be observed in making use of it. 
The reverent and judicious use of the Bible, which only seeks in 
a legitimate way to find the spiritual lessons and suggestions 
that do not disclose themselves to an irreverent or unbelieving 
reader, is not to be condemned, but rather to be commended. 
It is self-evident that the spiritualizing interpretation must be 
one which is fitted to meet a response in the general community 
of believers. Individual conceits, quixotic manipulations of 
numbers and letters which aim to bring out some hidden mean- 
ing or unsuspected revelation, — all this, and everything akin 
to this, is to be rejected. But he who holds that the Scriptures 
embody the revealed will and truth of God, and are therefore 
able to make men wise unto salvation, will more and more learn 
that every Scripture is " profitable for teaching, for reproof, for 
correction, and for instruction which is in righteousness," so that 
he who devoutly studies them will be "complete, furnished 
completely unto every good work." 



CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM! 355 



I 



CHAPTEE XL 

THE CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 

F we understand by the term " criticism " the careful and dis- 
criminating examination of the facts concerning the origin 
and characteristics of a book, according to the best attainable 
evidence, it is manifest that criticism is not only legitimate but 
desirable with reference to the Bible no less than any other 
book. Learning how a thing came to be is an important part 
of learning what it is. It would be the mark of a narrow and 
foolish spirit to be afraid of the most searching investigation 
which scholarship can institute into the age, the authorship, the 
authenticity, and the import of the several books of the Bible. 
Whatever can thus be discovered ought to be welcomed by all. 

But not every critical study, however conducted, can be de- 
pended on to arrive at sure and trustworthy results. There are 
limitations and difficulties in the nature of the subject, there 
are imperfections and prepossessions in the critic, which may 
lead astray or leave the result indecisive. 

Without attempting an exhaustive discussion of the condi- 
tions and limits of a sound Biblical criticism, we may lay down 
a few general propositions. 

1. Freedom from prepossessions is, as a qualification for criti- 
cal research, neither attainable nor desirable. It is easy and 
plausible to say that one who is seeking to ascertain the truth 
concerning any matter should care only for the truth, and should 
allow no antecedent convictions to bias him in his investiga- 
tions. It is self-evident that a man who is searching for the 
truth should honestly desire to find it; but it is not evident 
that a man can in his search divest himself of opinions already 
formed. If, whenever one undertakes a new study, he should 
begin by regarding everything as uncertain, it is clear that noth- 
ing new would ever be learned. Besearch would result only in 



356 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

an increase of uncertainty. The superstructure of a house can- 
not be built unless there is first a foundation. Whatever sure 
conclusions and convictions a person has arrived at on any point 
constitute a body of prepossessions which he must and should 
carry with him in his further research. Provided the earlier 
convictions are well grounded, he would be a fool, if at every 
new step in his progress he should allow himself to unsettle 
those convictions, and attempt to build up again from the very 
foundations. It is true, the earlier convictions may be erro- 
neous, and therefore the later studies may receive an injurious 
bias. Of course the abstract possibility of error must always be 
conceded. To err is human. But if one should undertake to 
act on the principle of distrusting conclusions already reached, 
one's whole time and energy would have to be spent in retracing 
all the steps previously taken; and so no real advance could 
ever be made. The investigations and conclusions of one gen- 
eration would be of no use to the next. No system of truth 
could ever be accumulated and made the foundation of further 
research or of assured faith. All traditional knowledge would 
have to be denounced as worthless. No one could be an au- 
thority in any sense to another. No science of any sort could 
ever be regarded as established ; each one would have to be set 
up afresh by each individual ; and the diversity of opinions 
which would inevitably result would be a reason for doubting 
the correctness of them all. Universal skepticism would be the 
certain and logical result. There could be not only no advance 
in knowledge, but no real knowledge at all. 

It may indeed be held that sure knowledge is not only unat- 
tainable, but not even desirable. This is what is meant — if 
indeed anything intelligible is meant — by Lessing's famous 
saying about the search for truth being preferable to the pos- 
session of it. 1 The maxim, doubtless, owes its longevity to its 

1 " Not by the possession, but by the search, of truth is breadth given to 
the faculties in which alone man's growing perfection consists. Possession 
makes one quiet, indolent, proud. If God should hold all truth in his right 
hand, and in his left hand the single, ever-active impulse to get truth, even 
though with the condition that I should forever and eternally fail of it, and 
should say to me, 'Choose ! ' I would humbly turn to his left hand and say, 



CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 357 

very extravagance ; it sounds brilliant, though in itself it is little 
else than a bald absurdity. If it really were better to pursue 
than to find, if the ideal state were that of chasing and never 
catching, and if it were possible to realize that ideal, then the 
result would have to be that the object of the pursuit must be 
forever unknown; truth being never attained, one could not 
even say that he is pursuing truth ; he would not know what 
he is pursuing; the only thing he could be sure of would be 
that he could never be sure of anything but the pursuit. And 
even that, if one is really sure of it, would be a truth, and there- 
fore to be got rid of as soon as possible. In this case, however 
it becomes a mystery wherein the joy and zest of the pursuit 
can consist. If ignorance is the certain goal, one does not need 
to hunt and chase in order to reach it ; the starting-point and 
the goal are one and the same thing. But, it is said, the good 
of the search is in the search itself ; it is in the mental exercise 
given by the search. "It is not knowledge," says Hamilton, 
" it is not truth, that " the votary of science " principally seeks ; 
he seeks the exercise of his faculties and feelings." 1 This is 
simply not true. What the votary of science seeks, if he de- 
serves the name, is knowledge. The mental gymnastic which 
comes through the search is doubtless a good; but it comes 
as an incidental advantage ; it is not the thing directly and 
principally aimed at. And moreover an intellectual exertion 
whose sole and certain end were simply error and ignorance 
would itself be a more than doubtful good. A cat vainly 
chasing her own tail gets, perhaps, a useful exercise by the 
process ; but she is wise enough to give up the pursuit when 
she finds that the tail cannot be caught. A true type of Les- 
sing's ideal truth-hunter would be a cat eternally pursuing her 
tail, though growing more and more doubtful whether the tail 
is after all anything but an illusive phantom. 

But there are few who would deliberately go to this extreme. 

'Father, give me this. The pure truth is for thee alone ' " (Eine Buplih, § 1). 
Sir William Hamilton (Metaphysics, p. 13) quotes this (apparently from 
memory) and other similar sayings with approval. A poor compliment to 
his own philosophy ! 
1 Metaphysics, p. 10. 



858 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

It is generally assumed that truth is attainable, and that the 
attainment of it is intrinsically desirable. But all hope of an 
increase of knowledge depends upon the assumption that some 
knowledge has been already attained. And this previous knowl- 
edge, or supposed knowledge, constitutes a prepossession. It 
may indeed be an error, and lead astray, but it cannot be 
ignored. Different prepossessions may, therefore, lead in dif- 
ferent directions. An atheist, to whom a supernatural revelation 
is simply impossible, must regard the Bible not only as not 
divinely infallible, but, on the contrary, as full of falsehood. 
He will not deem it worth the while to investigate particularly 
the merits of the several parts ; for his prepossession necessarily 
makes him condemn the whole fabric as a structure of fiction 
and foolish fancy. His general opinion as to the origin and value 
of the book must be totally different from that of him who comes 
to the study of it with an opposite prepossession. Between the 
outright atheist and the man who has been trained to believe 
that every word of Scripture is in the strictest sense a direct 
utterance of a personal God there are many grades of opinion ; 
but every opinion rests on a prepossession of some sort. It 
may be only a prepossession in favor of the trustworthiness 
of one's parents; it may be, on the contrary, an antipathy to 
those by whom one is instructed, leading to a disinclination to 
accept their opinions. It may be a prepossession derived from 
the books which have come in one's way, or from the friends 
that one has chanced to find. But prepossessions of some kind 
there are and must be in every case. 

There is nothing more shallow than the doctrine so often 
paraded before the public, that every one should be left to 
choose and formulate his own religious opinions, undetermined 
by parents or by any other outward influence. Even if it were 
possible for parents to avoid exerting an influence on the de- 
velopment of their children's minds, an influence would inevi- 
tably come from some other source. The infant mind reaches 
out for guidance and instruction as naturally as a plant seeks 
the sun. But even if this instinct could be suppressed, and 
each budding mind could be perfectly guarded against being 
influenced by other minds, how preposterous it w r ould be to 



CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 359 

attach any importance to the conclusions to which such a mind 
might come, deprived of the light which the experience and 
reflection of previous generations might have given. 1 Even 
if under such circumstances the mind could be developed 
rationally at all (which is more than doubtful), the most that 
could result would be a multitude of notions which could at 
the best claim to be nothing better than individual conceits. 
One could not speak of these conceits as truthful; for this 
epithet implies some commonly accepted standard according to 
which an opinion is judged. Moreover, unless by this inde- 
pendent method of arriving at opinions all should somehow 
come to exactly the same (which nobody would expect), then 
certainly not all of them could be correct ; and if the opinions 
should ever come to be compared, the comparison would disclose 
disagreement, the disagreement would lead to discussion, and 
the discussion would result in influencing some minds to 
modify or reverse their previous opinions. And so we should 
have at the last what is deprecated at the first, — opinions 
formed through outward influence. The independently formed 
opinions which are given up as the result of discussion with 
other persons would then have to be called prepossessions, 
so that if all prepossessions are to be abolished, we should 
have to abolish this same independent method of forming 
opinions. So suicidal and absurd is the doctrine that religious 
notions, or any other notions, ought to be formed without 
biasing influences. 

There is no more arrant quackery in the world than that 
which is seen in the boasted " freedom," or " free-thinking" of 
those who have broken away from the traditional views of 
parents and early associates. Whether their change is for the 

1 " It is neither the wise nor the good by whom the patrimony of opinion 
is most lightly regarded. Such is the condition of our existence that, beyond 
the precincts of abstract science, we must take much for granted, if we would 
make any advance in knowledge, or live to any useful end. Our hereditary 
prepossessions must not only precede our acquired judgments, but must 
conduct us to them. To begin by questioning everything is to end by an- 
swering nothing ; and a premature revolt from human authority is but an in- 
cipient rebellion against conscience, reason, and truth." — Sir James Stephen, 
Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography (on Richard Baxter), 4th ed., pp. 337, 338. 



360 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

better or for the worse, is a question by itself; but in no case 
has the change come about independently of outward influences. 
If it had so come about, if the new opinion were absolutely 
new, — not suggested to the mind by any other person or any 
book, — then that would itself be generally regarded as pre- 
sumptive evidence against it. Or if it were able to vindicate 
itself, then that would mean that it becomes a force which 
modifies the opinions of others ; the others, after that, would 
not have independent opinions ; only this one could boast that 
merit. Universal and absolute independence, in short, in the 
formation of judgments is an impossibility and an absurdity. 1 

It is only a particular application of this general principle, 
when we remark that — 

2. One's critical judgment of the Christian Scriptures must 
be largely modified by one's antecedent judgment respecting 
Christ and Christianity. Christianity is at all events a great 
fact; and according as it is or is not regarded as a divine reve- 
lation, men will pronounce it a great boon or a great fraud. 
And the Christian Scriptures being the product and expression 
of Christianity, this prejudgment concerning the producer can- 
not but have a determining influence on one's judgment con- 
cerning the product. 

But here the objection may be made : A pre-judgment is a 
pre-judice; and prejudice is an evil, to be avoided or overcome 
as far as possible. To this the Christian believer may reply : 
Christianity is not a new thing just beginning to urge its claims 
on the world. It is nearly two thousand years old. It has 
passed through storms of opposition. It has not run its course 
in a dark corner of the earth, but has been exposed to the 
brightest light. If, then, in spite of the natural human de- 
pravity which it everywhere meets and denounces, and in spite 
of the malicious and subtle opposition of learned foes, it has 
continued to assert and propagate itself ; if it has even survived 
its own corruptions, and has relaxed no whit of its original 
claims concerning itself, — then it must be said to have conquered 

1 Cf. E. C. Bissell, The Pentateuch, pp. 45 sg. "Prepossessions are inevi- 
table. We can no more get rid of them than of our skins. They are, indeed, 
an essential part of our mental and moral furnishing." 



CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 361 

a right to be; and Christians have a right to treat it as having 
a presumption in its favor. It is simply impossible for them 
to regard the truth of the Christian religion as a matter of 
everlasting doubt. 

Now this belief in Christianity as a divine revelation is 
something anterior to all critical study of the Christian Scrip- 
tures. The faith grew up before those Scriptures were written. 
It rests, primarily, upon the evidence found in the character, 
words, and works of Jesus Christ. It rests, secondarily, on the 
historical working of Christianity in the world. It has become 
one of the great forces and facts of the universe. The Christian 
Scriptures are only the record of the origin, early propagation, 
and effects of the new faith. They serve, it is true, to pre- 
serve and regulate that faith. They have characteristics which 
may be used as arguments for the validity of the claims of 
Christianity to be a genuine revelation. But, in general, their 
office is to state what Christianity is, and how it came to be ; 
they do not constitute the original ground of the Christian 
faith. 

Now it is simply impossible for a Christian not to be 
prejudiced in favor of these Scriptures. Belief in their im- 
portance and in their essential truthfulness as an exposition of 
the history and spirit of the Christian system is a part of his 
Christian faith itself. He cannot hold to the one, and despise 
the other. And equally it is impossible for an enemy of 
Christianity to look with favor and confidence on the primitive 
records of the Christian Church. If he regards the fundamental 
claim of the religion to be false ; if he does not trust the pre- 
tensions of the Founder ; if he sees no evidence of its divinity 
in the history of its effects on the world; if, rather, he is 
convinced that Christianity is a cheat and is a damage to the 
world, — why, then he must be predisposed to find evidence 
that the alleged records of primitive Christianity are tainted 
with delusion and fraud. He cannot hate the one, and love 
the other. The Christian and the infidel, starting with such 
opposite predilections, cannot but disagree in their critical 
judgments. The one will be disposed to find evidence for, the 
other evidence against, the genuineness and authenticity of 



362 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

the New Testament books. And what one desires to find he 
will be likely to find. 

But, it may now be said, all this only goes to show that both 
the friend and the enemy of Christianity are biased, and there- 
fore likely to reach a wrong conclusion. Eeal candor, it may 
seem, can be found only in one who is in a state of absolute 
indifference, — only in one who has no impression whatever as 
to the truth or falsity of the claims of Christianity. But 
ignorance is not the chief desideratum in a critic. It would 
be difficult, in the first place, except in heathen lands, to find 
any one who has absolutely no opinion about Christianity. But, 
in the second place, when such a man is found and put upon 
his critical examination of the Biblical books, he must needs 
first of all make himself acquainted with the facts which bear 
upon the question to be solved. And foremost among these facts 
is the history of the Christian Church from the beginning on. 
No intelligent opinion of the character of the New Testament 
can be formed, till one has learned what it was that gave rise 
to it, — amid what circumstances and under what impulses it was 
produced. But by the time this stage of intelligence is reached, 
some impression will have been formed concerning the merits 
of Christianity. And so we shall have what we set out to 
avoid, namely, a prejudice in one direction or the other. 

"No doubt, on either side there may be often a lack of candor. 
Both the believer and the skeptic, under the influence of their 
prepossessions, may ignore facts or be perverse in their infer- 
ences from facts. On the contrary, there may be on both sides 
a painstaking effort to ascertain the truth, and no conscious 
desire to reason unfairly. But if the prepossessions, the pre- 
suppositions, are in the two cases different, the conclusions 
will most probably be different. If, for example, one man 
starts out with the assumption that no miracle is possible or 
credible, all his interpretation of the phenomena of the New 
Testament must be colored by this assumption. He feels 
bound to explain the reported miracles away. The super- 
naturalist, on the other hand, to whom the miracles are not 
offensive, but, on the contrary, probable and welcome, cannot 
but take an entirely different view of the written record. The 



CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 363 

difference is a radical one, and the root of it is to be found 
in difference of view on questions lying at the very foundation 
of religion. There must on both sides be a bias. 

Freedom from bias cannot be attained unless one can attain a 
state of perfect indifference respecting truth in general. It might 
seem as if the ideal impartiality would be that of him who is in a 
state of chronic doubt as to whether there is a God or not, whether 
sin is a reality or not, whether Jesus Christ ever lived or not, or if 
he did, whether he was an impostor or not. But such an impar- 
tiality would be called, in any other sphere, scientific or prac- 
tical, the extreme of folly or of madness. It would make doubt 
and indecision a perpetual duty. It would paralyze all research. 
Under cover of a desire to get at the exact facts, it would make 
belief in the reality of any fact impossible ; for such a belief 
would become a determining bias in all future investigation. 

The Christian scholar need, therefore, not be disconcerted by 
the charge that he is biased, when he finds himself inclined 
in general to defend the genuineness and authenticity and 
authority of the Scriptures. If he is a Christian in real earnest, 
he cannot do otherwise. 

3. Neither critical research nor Christian insight will ever 
effect a reconstruction or expurgation of the Canon of Sacred 
Scripture. Both these forces operated in the original fixing of 
the Canon. And the decision finally arrived at was not the 
result of accident ; it was not brought about by any arbitrary 
decrees of Councils. The Councils only gave expression to what 
had come to be the conviction of the Christian Church in general. 
We know that the process was a slow, deliberate, and careful 
one, by which the Canon was formed. The times and the men 
are now gone that were best able to determine what books 
deserved to be reckoned in the Biblical Canon. Criticism, how- 
ever subtle and learned, will never be able to prove the early 
Church to have been mistaken in its judgment respecting the 
authorship of any of the Biblical books. The presumption must 
continue to be in favor of the judgment of those who lived 
nearest to the time of the origin of the writings, and had the best 
opportunities of determining the facts concerning them. 

But in so far as the fixing of the Canon was determined by 



364 



SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 



the discriminating tact of the religious sense, there is likewise 
a presumption in favor of the selection that was originally made. 
Those who stood nearest to the traditions of the vehicles of 
divine revelation could best detect what writings most perfectly 
reflected the spirit of the prophets and apostles. 

But it may be asked whether it is not possible for the Chris- 
tian Church after all to reverse the original decision. Is it not 
conceivable that, notwithstanding our greater remoteness in time, 
we may yet have in some respects clearer light or a more deli- 
cate spiritual sense, and so be able to form a wiser judgment as 
to what ought to have been admitted into the Canon ? Theoreti- 
cally, perhaps, such a possibility may be admitted. The original 
act of determining the limits of the Canon was not controlled by 
any special supernatural inspiration. The Church followed its 
own best judgment; we do not know what biasing influences 
may have co-operated in securing just the selection which has 
been handed down to us. The Church of the post-apostolic 
period cannot claim to have had any divine authority to deter- 
mine for all time precisely what books must be treated as having 
peculiar divine sanction. "Why might not the Church of any 
subsequent period have exercised, or still exercise, the right of 
revising that first decision ? It certainly might, if it could make 
it clear that it had better means of settling the Canon than the 
early Church had. But just here is the difficulty which will 
never be removed. It may be imagined as possible that some 
new historical evidence should come to light proving clearly 
that certain books were admitted into the Canon on account of a 
mistaken impression as to their authorship. If it can be shown 
that these books — say, Jude or Solomon's Song — would cer- 
tainly have been excluded, had they been known to be not 
genuine, and if it can now be proved that they are not genuine* 
does it not follow that they ought now to be ejected ? Yes, no 
doubt. And so we may imagine the possibility that all the Xew 
Testament books are spurious and unauthentic. But it is prac- 
tically certain that such a possibility can never be transformed 
into a demonstrated fact. And so, though not with the same 
degree of positiveness, we must say that it is practically certain 
that no new evidence can ever be discovered going to show that 



CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 365 

any of the Biblical books were pronounced canonical on the 
ground of erroneous notions concerning their authorship. 

Still, it may be said, it is a fact that the limits of the Canon 
were fixed only after much division, doubt, and hesitation. 
What was originally doubtful cannot have grown certain through 
the mere lapse of time. Canonicity is, therefore, a quality of 
a rather indefinite sort, and no peculiar sanctity can attach to 
just those writings which happen to have been called canonical. 
The Church is to this day divided as regards the canonicity of 
the Old Testament Apocrypha. 

What shall we say to this ? Even if a certain degree of doubt 
may be cherished as to a few of the Biblical books ; even though 
the line between the canonical and the uncanonical is not per- 
fectly sharp and definable, — still this indefiniteness does not do 
away with the distinction. The border line between animals 
and vegetables is difficult to fix with precision ; but the general 
distinction between the two kingdoms is marked and unmistak- 
able. Just so, as regards the Canon, even though it may be 
considered doubtful whether certain books ought not to have 
been left out, and certain others let in, the essential distinction 
between the canonical and the uncanonical is not obliterated. 
At the most, we can only say that whatever valid ground for 
hesitation existed originally may be held to exist still. We 
may derive from the course of the early Church a warrant for 
receiving somewhat doubtfully, and with a certain qualification, 
a few of the Biblical books. But as to the larger part the origi- 
nal decision is practically binding on us. The evidence of their 
being genuine and authoritative exponents of the facts and 
truths of revelation is indissolubly connected with the evidence 
that we have any correct knowledge of the revelation at all. 1 
The same men who transmitted to us the gospel of Christ trans- 
mitted to us these Scriptures as the inspired memorials of his 
gospel. 

The Canon of Scripture, then, especially that of the New 
Testament, practically stands or falls with Christianity itself, 
for it was the outgrowth and expression of Christianity. This 

1 Cf. Westcott, History of the Canon of the New Testament, 5 th ed., 1881, 
pp. 500 sq. 



366 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

does not preclude the possibility of easting discredit, through 
critical research, upon certain portions, larger or smaller, of the 
Canon. It cannot be laid down as an axiom, that no part even 
of the New Testament is in the slightest degree untrustwortlry, 
or that through interpolation or errors of transcription some parts 
may not have been more or less corrupted. But the existence 
of such incidental defects can be effectively made out, if at all, 
only in so far as the authenticity and authority of the collection 
as a whole are admitted. It is as impossible to show that the 
New Testament does not exhibit the genuine religion of Jesus 
Christ as it is to prove that the writings commonly ascribed to 
Plato do not correctly represent Plato's philosophy. There is 
this difference, it is true, between the two cases, that the Pla- 
tonic writings purport to come from the philosopher himself, 
whereas the New Testament is the work of various men, and not 
at all the work of Christ. But this difference only serves to 
enhance the strength of the Christian case. It is barely con- 
ceivable that the treatises ascribed to Plato might be proved to 
have originated from some other man, just as of late years cer- 
tain literary adventurers have (in imagination at least) proved 
that the so-called plays of Shakspeare were after all written by 
Bacon. But in that case, though the philosophy would still be 
the same, it could no longer properly be called Platonism. The 
system of Christian doctrine, however, is essentially connected 
with the person of Jesus Christ. Even if the books of the New 
Testament could be shown to have originated at another time 
and from another source than is commonly supposed, they would 
still represent the faith of the Christian Church, and the person 
of Christ would still be the centre of that faith. But though it 
is conceivable that the Christian world may be shown to have 
been mistaken in regard to the age and authorship of their 
Sacred Scriptures, it is practically certain that not even this can 
ever be proved. They will forever remain, in their general 
extent and drift, the Canon of Christian faith and practice. 

Practically, then, the Canon is impregnable. It must remain 
as it is. No consensus of the Church can ever be expected to 
revise the general results of the early decision. But another 
and kindred question here meets us : Though the collection may 



CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 367 

be left as it is, and be accepted as conveying to us authentic 
testimony concerning divine truth and the divine economy, still 
may not the spiritual insight of the Church detect, as it were, a 
Canon within the Canon, distinguishing the true Word of God — 
the kernel — from the enveloping husk of human forms, concep- 
tions, and traditions ? Must we not say that the Bible contains 
the Word of God, rather than that it is the Word of God ? 

In an important sense this must be regarded as a correct con- 
ception. The term " Word of God " is nowhere used in the Bible 
as a comprehensive name of the canonical collection ; from the 
nature of the case it could not have been so used before all the 
books in question were written. But even in the New Testa- 
ment the Old Testament, though then a finished whole, was 
never as a whole called the Word of God. Where that phrase 
occurs with reference to the Old Testament it refers to some 
particular divine command (Mark vii. 13 ; 2 Pet. iii. 5) or prom- 
ise (Eom. ix. 6). In by far the most numerous instances the 
phrase is used as nearly synonymous with " the gospel," as Acts 
iv. 31, vi. 7, xi. 1, xii. 24, xviii. 11, xix. 20 ; 1 Cor. xiv. 36 ; 1 Thess. 
ii. 13 ; 2 Tim. ii. 9 ; Tit. ii. 5 ; Heb. iv. 12 ; 1 Pet. i. 23 ; Rev. i. 
9, xx. 4. This is undoubtedly the meaning of it also in 2 Cor. 
iv. 2, though this verse is commonly quoted as if referring to the 
Scriptures. Nowhere is the term " Word of God " used of the 
collected books of the Old Testament. 1 

Too much stress, however, must not be laid on this. Though the 
use of the phrase " Word of God " as synonymous with " Scripture " 
is comparatively modern, it does not therefore follow that this use 
of the phrase is out of keeping with the usage of the Biblical 
writers. On the contrary, when the Old Testament is as a whole 
called " inspired of God," we must say that this epithet implies 
as much as the term " Word of God " would imply with reference 
to the divine origin of the book, unless this term is taken in its 
most literal sense, namely, that of words uttered by God and 
simply recorded by men. But that there is a human element 
in the Scriptures we now take for granted. When, however, we 
speak of them as characterized by both a human and a divine 

1 Cf. Ladd, Sacred Scripture, vol. ii. p. 503 ; "Warington, Inspiration, p. 273, 
for a more detailed discussion of this. 



368 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

element, how do we understand the two to be related ? Are 
they distinguishable, though conjoined ? Can we sift out the 
human, and leave the divine unadulterated ? Can we separate 
the chapters, verses, or words that are purely divine from those 
that are purely human ? Evidently such a conception of the 
matter is crude. Such a mechanical mixture of the divine and 
the human is well-nigh inconceivable, and is certainly attested 
by no evidence. The union of the divine and human must 
rather be regarded as a blending of the two into one, — an in- 
terpenetration which makes a nice dissection impossible. The 
ability to enucleate the purely divine, to distinguish it infallibly 
from the human, can at the best be only a divine prerogative. 
The same limitations and weaknesses of human nature "which 
occasioned the presence of a human element in the word of 
revelation cannot but make themselves felt in the interpretation 
and application of that word. We have the treasure of the light 
of the knowledge of the glory of God, but we have it in earthen 
vessels (2 Cor. iv. 7). The knowledge will grow more and more 
perfect as we advance in spirituality ; but now we see in a mirror 
darkly ; now we know only in part (1 Cor. xiii. 12). 

What, then, will be the effect of a growing apprehension of 
divine truth in the individual and in the community ? Will it 
lead to a sharper distinction between one part of the Bible and 
another, according as they are discerned to have respectively 
more or less of the human element ? Will the result be that by 
degrees certain books of the Bible will be practically detached 
from the Canon, and no longer recognized as either being or 
containing the Word of God ? Will other books be analyzed 
and dissected, certain verses or sections branded as containing 
nothing but human matter, and the rest as being worthy to be 
called inspired ? Will the analysis proceed so far that we shall 
discern several grades of inspiration, and shall be able to assign 
each sentence of Scripture to one or to the other, or to relegate 
it to the class of the wholly uninspired ones ? Such a concep- 
tion is certainly not the correct one. It cannot be carried out 
practically. No two men would coincide with each other in 
their analysis. And it involves a mechanical theory of inspira- 
tion. To suppose, for example, Paul to have been inspired in 



CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 369 

general when writing to Timothy, but to have been left without 
inspiration when he spoke about the cloak and parchments 
(2 Tim. iv. 13), is to make a distinction for which there is no 
warrant. No doubt we may, as Lowth says, 1 " distinguish the 
mysteries of faith and the rules of practice from a cloke and 
parchments, or a journey to Corinth ; " and no doubt this and 
other similar references to purely personal, local, temporary, or 
physical matters are of less consequence than that which relates 
directly to redemption and sanctification. No doubt, if we were 
to have a Bible consisting wholly either of 2 Tim. iv. 13 or of 
John iii. 16, it would be infinitely more important to have the 
revelation of God's saving love than the information about Paul's 
transient necessities. No doubt the most extreme sticklers for 
the plenary inspiration of each and every part of Holy Writ 
have always practically attached greater weight to some por- 
tions of it than to others. But what of that ? If inspiration is 
to be measured and mapped according to the relative importance 
of the several utterances of inspired men, we shall have to dis- 
tinguish, not merely two or three grades, but an indefinite num- 
ber of them ; we shall have to distinguish even in separate 
sentences the more important from the less important, and 
argue, for example, that, where a different conjunction or prepo- 
sition would seemingly have answered just as well or even bet- 
ter, the writer could not have been inspired in the use of those 
parts of speech, though he may have been inspired in his use of 
the nouns and verbs. 

Manifestly this criterion cannot be made to work. Eevela- 
tion and inspiration have, it is true, moral and spiritual, rather 
than physical and scientific, ends. But this attempt to analyze 
inspiration according to the comparative importance of the sev- 
eral utterances of the subjects of it virtually leads to, even if it 
does not proceed from, a theory of verbal inspiration of the 
rankest sort. It can logically be made to accord only with the 
hypothesis of sheer dictation. If inspiration is dynamic rather 
than mechanical, if it is a force moving on the whole inner and 
spiritual man, rather than an intermittent prompter of words, 

1 Vindication of the Divine Authority and Inspiration of the Old and New 
Testaments, London, 1821, p. 54. 

24 



370 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

then it is present, not only when the inspired man is treating of 
the loftier themes of redemption, but also when he speaks of 
subordinate religious or moral matters, or even when he touches 
on topics of a purely temporal character. As an ordinary Chris- 
tian may be exerting a religious influence, not only when he 
preaches the gospel from a pulpit, but also by the manner in 
which he deports himself in his temporal occupations, so the 
Biblical writer's inspiration may be as real when he treats of 
the most trivial matters as when he is enunciating the weightiest 
doctrines of grace. 

Nevertheless we may discriminate between the more and the 
less important. We may find the Old Testament in general 
inferior to the New. And in each Testament we may find some 
portions more intimately related to the central truths of revela- 
tion than others are. We may believe that in every portion 
there are traces of human imperfection, that even the doctrines 
of redemption could not be perfectly set forth by those who 
knew and prophesied only in part. But yet we shall not find 
any part destitute of the working of the Spirit of inspiration ; 
and as we make progress towards the unity of the faith and of 
the knowledge of the Son of God, towards the measure of the 
stature of the fulness of Christ, we shall not be led to intensify 
the distinction between the more inspired and the less inspired 
parts of the Scriptures, and to find some to be not inspired at 
all; we shall rather find everywhere more and more of the 
breathings of the Spirit of truth and of grace, and discover that 
every Scripture, being inspired of God, is also profitable for 
teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction. 

4. Criticism can never convince Christendom that pious 
fraud has played an important part in determining the substance 
or form of the Scriptures. There are few who would now under- 
take to maintain that wicked and malicious deception was prac- 
tised in the composition of the Biblical books. But there are 
many who are ready to believe that a more innocent or even a 
useful deception can be shown to have been extensively resorted 
to by the Biblical writers. The Tubingen theory of the ori- 
gin of the New Testament — the so-called Tendenz theory — is 
founded on this notion that a pious fraud was practised in order 



CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 371 

to advance the interests of Catholic Christianity. The kernel 
of the theory is that at the outset radically opposite tendencies 
divided the Christian Church, — Pauline Christianity on the one 
hand, and Ebionitism, or a Judaizing spirit, on the other; that 
some of the New Testament books, especially the first four 
Pauline Epistles (the only ones conceded to be genuine), repre- 
sent the one drift, while on the other hand the Gospel of Mat- 
thew, the Epistle of James, Second Peter, and the Apocalypse 
represent the Judaistic party ; and that finally another group of 
books (such as Luke, John, Acts, Ephesians, Philippians, Colos- 
sians, the Pastoral Epistles, and First Peter) were composed for 
the express purpose of reconciling the opposing parties. 1 

The Tubingen hypothesis has been met on its own ground, and 
shown to be full of inherent and insuperable difficulties, even 
when all prejudices in favor of the traditional notion of the 
Biblical books is laid aside. It exists now only as a ruin, some 
of its assumptions and some of its conclusions being still held 
by a few, while the critical structure as a whole has fallen under 
the attacks of counter-criticism and under the weight of its 
own extravagance. Apart, however, from the exposure of the 
intrinsic groundlessness of the fundamental assumption of the 
school, one thing that has powerfully operated to prevent the 
theory from gaining any general acceptance in the Christian 
Church is just this assumption of fraud and forgery which is 
involved as an essential part of the theory. The whole ISTew 
Testament, with few exceptions, is made to be the product of 
Tendenz, that is, in plain English, of a conscious falsification of 
history for a purpose. Stories of Christ's life and teachings and 
the narrative of early apostolic activity are alleged to have been 
composed, not for the sake of reporting what actually had hap- 
pened, but for the sake of making men believe that certain things 
had happened. Epistles are said to have been invented at a late 
period, and ascribed to Paul or Peter, not for the purpose of 

1 As might be expected, the critical sense of the different representatives of 
the Tubingen school varies somewhat. Pfleiderer, e.g., admits the genuineness 
of Philippians, Philemon, and First Thessalonians, and calls Colossians and 
Second Thessalonians spurions somewhat doubtfully (Der Paulinismus, p. 28). 
Baur acknowledged only the first four. 



372 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

making known what these apostles really taught, but for the 
purpose of assuaging the antagonism of the Pauline and Petrine 
parties by falsely representing that Peter and Paul after all 
taught substantially the same doctrines. 1 The New Testament 
in general is made by this theory to be, not the trustworthy 
record and depository of the original Christian history and Chris- 
tian doctrine, but the product of a fierce theological war, in 
which, as in military contests, each party dealt freely in decep- 
tion in order to gain its ends, — the only difference being that 
in the ecclesiastical squabble a third party is supposed to have 
come in and to have practised its deceptions on the other two, 
in order to persuade them that they have really had no good 
reason for fighting at all ! 

Now, no matter with how great a display of learning and in- 
genuity this conception of the origin of the New Testament 
books may be set forth, no matter in what euphemistic phrase- 
ology the charges of forgery and falsification may be clothed, 
the plain blunt common sense of Christians will always rebel at 
any such hypothesis. What is involved in the acceptance of 
it ? One reads, for example, in Eph. iv. 25, "Wherefore putting 
away falsehood, speak ye truth each one with his neighbor ; for 
we are members one of another." Then he reads the higher 
criticism on this Epistle, and is told that it was written by some- 
body a hundred years after the time of Paul, 2 yet falsely ascribed 
to Paul by the writer. That is, the author who embodies in his 
epistle this forcible admonition to refrain from all falsehood is 
guilty of a wholesale falsehood in ascribing this admonition and 
all the rest of the epistle to a man who did not write it. Now 
calling this proceeding by the solemn-sounding name " pseud- 
epigraphy " does not change its essential character, or commend 
it to the simple conscience of a Christian. And the more he 
finds the tender and lofty Christian sentiments of the Epistle 
awakening a response in his own heart, the less will he be able 
to believe that one who could so well set forth Christian truth 

1 See, e. g., Schwegler, Das nachapostolische Zeitalter, vol. ii. p. 4, and 
passim. 

2 Schwegler, /. c. t finds clear evidence that the Epistle was written by a Mon- 
tanist. 



CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 373 

and duty could deliberately make himself guilty of the forgery 
and deception involved in the repeated ascription of the Epistle 
to Paul. 1 Now, if it were a demonstrated fact that such a thing 
had been done, we should have to admit it and make the best 
of it; and one consequence would be the destruction of the 
canonical authority of the Epistle. But so long as the proofs of 
alleged pseudonymousness are pure conjectures and subjective 
conceits, 2 they will never be sufficient to outweigh the conviction 
of the Christian Church, — against which no historic evidence 
can be adduced, — that an epistle so full as this is of the Pauline 
spirit, and itself professing to be the work of Paul, cannot have 
been fraudulently ascribed to him. 

What has been said of the Tubingen theory of the origin of 
the New Testament must be said mutatis mutandis of its coun- 
terpart, the Kuenen-Wellhausen theory of the origin of the Old 
Testament. The literary and historical arguments on either side 
must be allowed free course ; and whatever is proved must be 
accepted as true. But here, as in the other case, mere subjective 
assumptions, and even plausible inferences, can never be suffi- 
cient to convince the great body of the Christian Church that the 
Scriptures in question are to a large extent fraudulent documents 
designed from the outset to deceive the reader respecting their 
authorship and respecting the course of sacred history. It must 

1 Vide i. 1, iii. 1, iv. 1, vi. 20-22. But indeed the whole Epistle is mani- 
festly constructed with this reference. All the personal appeals and allusions 
{e.g., i. 15 sq., iii. 2-8, 13-19, iv. 17), are pointless and meaningless, unless 
they are meant to make the impression that Paul was the real author. 

2 Thus Pfleiderer {Ber Paulinismus, pp. 432, 433) finds the question of 
the relation of Jews and heathen to Christ in this Epistle an entirely different 
one from what it had been in Paul's own time. At first, he says, it was neces- 
sary for Paul to contend for the equal rights of the heathen against Jewish 
exclusiveness ; but now, he adds, "it is the unchristian pride and uncharitable- 
ness of the Gentile Christians against which the author directs himself, reminding 
them of the greatness of the divine act of grace to which they owe their reception 
into the Messianic kingdom." Just as if Paul must always be harping on one 
string ; as if the various circumstances and tendencies of his different readers 
could not lead him to emphasize the different sides of Christian truth; and, 
moreover, as if in the Epistle to the Romans Paul had not done precisely the 
same thing which Pfleiderer finds to be a proof that he did not write the Epistle 
to the Ephesians. Vide Rom. xi. 17-25. 



374 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

be remembered that any result attained by means of critical in- 
vestigation is at the best only made probable, however great the 
degree of probability may seem to be. And it is not mere bigoted 
u traditionalism " which sets against some of these alleged results 
the extreme improbability that any important part of the Old 
Testament became accepted by the Jewish people as authentic 
history or as divine law through the agency of falsification. 

True, we must make discriminations. We cannot say that 
fiction has no place in the Bible. The parables of our Lord are 
themselves fictions. We cannot say that no pseudonymous book 
can have place in the Canon, though at the most there is not 
more than one book (Ecclesiastes) admitted by anything like the 
general consent of scholars to belong to that class. It is note- 
worthy that the great mass of works of this sort, of which there 
were many, never found their way into the recognized Canon. 
But it has been asked, " Why should there not be some of these 
in the Old Testament ? ... If one pseudonyme, for example, 
Ecclesiastes, be admitted in the Bible, then the question whether 
Daniel and Deuteronomy are pseudonymes must be determined 
by the higher criticism, and it does not touch the question of 
their inspiration or authority as a part of the Scriptures at alL ,, 
" The usage of literature," it is added, " ancient and modern, has 
established its propriety." 1 Stated in this general form, the 
question seems very simple and innocent. But there are some 
important distinctions to be made : (1) If the pseudonymous 
work is known to be such when it is published, there can be no 
moral objection to the assumption of a false name. ISTo one is 
deceived, and no harm is done. (2) If the assumed name is 
that of a well-known person, it is especially important that it 
should be known that it is fictitiously ascribed to him. The 
vast preponderance of pseudonymous works bear names that are 
themselves fictitious. In this case it is of less importance that 
everybody should know that the name is feigned. When a novel 
first appeared as written by George Eliot, it might have been 
imagined by many that this was the real name of the author. 
But no harm was done so long as no one knew anything about 
a person of that name. If, however, the novel had been falsely 
1 C. A. Briggs, Biblical Study, pp. 224, 225. 



CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 375 

ascribed to a well-known personage, there would at once have 
been a moral question involved. If that person had been living, 
so that he might possibly have been the author, then, whether 
the fictitious ascription was made with or without his knowledge 
and consent, in either case the act would have been morally re- 
prehensible. 1 (3) There is a wide difference between a treatise 
of an ethical or philosophical character fictitiously ascribed to a 
well-known person, and a treatise of a legislative or historical 
character similarly ascribed. In either case the fiction is inex- 
cusable, if the design of it is to secure currency for the work 
by virtue of the fame of the reputed author. But mere gen- 
eral meditations or disquisitions, since their worth is intrinsic, 
being the same from whatever source they may have come, are 
none the less instructive for being attributed to another than 
the real author. But when the fictitiousness extends so far 
as to falsify history, and to foist in a new code of laws under 
the pretext that it is in reality an old code, the case is radically 
different. 

Take the case of Deuteronomy. If it first came into existence 
in the reign of Josiah, as the critical school in question holds, 
we have before us something quite else than a mere instance of 
pseudonymousness. The fiction respecting the authorship of the 
book, though bad enough, is of less account than the fiction re- 
specting the authorship and history of the laws contained in it. 
If the Book of Ecclesiastes was written centuries after the time 
of Solomon, then even if (as is not very probable) the author 
could have made the people believe it to be the work of Solo- 
mon, though never heard of before, still the belief in the Solo- 
monic authorship did not have, and was not designed to have, 
the effect of changing the popular notions concerning past his- 
tory, or of introducing a new code of laws. No one attempted 
on the strength of the deception to impose legal and ceremonial 
obligations on the people. Pseudepigraphy may be an innocent 

1 Sir James Stephen (Essays in Eccl. Biography, p. 299, 4th ed.) mentions 
the case of Nicole, who wrote Be la Perpetuite de la Foi sur VEucharistie, but 
put it out under the name of his friend Arnauld, — "on the side of Arnauld," 
observes Stephen, " a literary and pious fraud which it is impossible to ex- 
cuse ; " — and hardly more excusable, we may add, on the side of Nicole. 



376 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

thing, if all that is done is merely the assumption of a fictitious 
name ; but if by means of the pseudepigraphy one undertakes 
to levy a tax, or raise an army, the thing is no longer a harmless 
freak, but becomes a criminal fraud. This illustrates what the 
" higher criticism ■ ■ requires us to believe respecting Deuteron- 
omy. The ascription of the legislation in it to Moses was not a 
mere literary fiction ; it was (on the theory under consideration) 
a fiction whose object was the accomplishment of a practical 
end, namely, the introduction and enforcement of a new code of 
laws. Whoever wrote the book must have given it the form of 
a Mosaic production for the purpose of securing for it a sanction 
and a currency which otherwise it could not have had. If that 
was not the object, it had no intelligible object. And if the 
object was accomplished by the device of representing the legis- 
lation as ancient Mosaic legislation, then the procedure involved 
the essential elements of forgery and fraud. 1 When, therefore, 
one asks, Why, if one pseudonyme (Ecclesiastes) be admitted in 
the Bible, may we not admit that Deuteronomy is another ? the 
answer may be given by asking, Why, if it was a harmless 
thing for Dickens to ascribe his novels to the fictitious " Boz," 
would it not also have been proper for him to forge an Act of 
Parliament and the royal signature ordering the introduction of 
the decimal system into the English currency ? He might have 
deemed the reform a desirable one ; and in view of the improba- 
bility that the government would institute it, he might have 
thought this the only feasible way of bringing it about. Of 
course we do not need to inquire whether it would have been 
possible for Dickens to carry such a scheme through, and really 
make the public and the officials of the Treasury and the Mint 
believe that such an act had been passed. In the analogous 
case of the Deuteronomic legislation the critics have decided 
that the thing was done ; we are now only inquiring into the 
moral character of it. 

It is true, the critics undertake to soften down, or explain 
away, the fraudulent character of the proceeding. Eobertson 
Smith indeed goes so far as to affirm that, though "the new 

1 Cf. Dean Perowne, The Age of the Pentateuch {Contemporary Review, 
1888, p. 255). 



CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 377 

laws of the Levitical code are presented as ordinances of Moses," 
yet, when they were first promulgated, " every one knew that 
they were not so." 2 It was, he says, simply a case of " legal 
fiction." " All law was held to be derived from the teaching of 
Moses." 2 Therefore the new law had to be called Mosaic, though 
everybody knew that the appellation was a mere form ! 3 The 
above-quoted utterance of Professor Smith relates more directly 
to the Levitical code, which is supposed to have been promul- 
gated authoritatively by Ezra. He is not so explicit as to the 
Deuteronomic laws, though, if the principle is correct with 
reference to the Levitical code, it must be equally true with 
reference to the other. Is he less explicit for the reason that 
Deuteronomy is described as not proceeding from the king, or 
the priests, or any one in authority, but simply as a code of laws 
discovered ? The " legal fiction " theory, however plausible when 
applied to a new set of laws issued by an acknowledged ruler or 
leader, somehow has a different look when applied to this code 
which is described as unexpectedly " found " by the high-priest 
Hilkiah (2 Kings xxii. 8). According to the critics, no one 
knows where the book came from. Eobertson Smith is sure 
that Hilkiah did not compose it — not, however, because " I 
have found " evidently means something else than " I have 
written ; " but because the new law w T as less favorable to the 
exclusive privileges of the temple hierarchy than the previous 
usage had been. 4 All we can say is that the law turned up. 

1 The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, p. 387. 

2 Ibid., p. 385. 

8 Dr. Dwinell, in his review of Professor Smith's later work, The Prophets 
of Israel {Bibliotheca Sacra, 1884, p. 344), seems to be mistaken, when 
he represents Professor Smith as implying that the Jews were originally 
deceived by the attribution of the new laws to Moses. — Warington ( When was 
the Pentateuch written /p. Ill) makes a good point against the assumption 
that Moses' name was so great that all legislation must needs have been as- 
cribed to him : " Was there, in the times when these frauds are said to have 
been pnt forth, such a widespread reverence for the name of Moses as would 
lead to the ready acceptance of any laws bearing his superscription ? If there 
was, it is certainly strange that Moses' name is so seldom found in the writings 
of the prophets ; there being in fact bnt one passage (Mai. iv. 4) where he is 
mentioned as giver of the law which the people are exhorted to obey." 

4 Ibid., p. 362. This argument is, however, conclusive only on the assump- 



378 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

" It was of no consequence to Josiah," says Professor Smith, and 
" is of equally little consequence to us, to know the exact date 
and authorship of the book." 1 " Though the book had no ex- 
ternal credentials, it bore its evidence within itself, and it was 
stamped with the approval of the prophetess Huldah." Con- 
sequently it " smote the hearts of the king and the people." 2 
But it produced this effect on the king before it was referred to 
the prophetess for her opinion; he "rent his clothes" (verse 11) 
as soon as he heard the book read, and was in great consterna- 
tion because the fathers of himself and of his people had " not 
hearkened unto the words of this book" (verse 13). If " it was 
of no consequence " to him to know when and by whom the 
book was written ; if, so far as he knew, it might have been (as 
some have conjectured) the work of Hilkiah himself, how should 
he have thought that Jehovah's anger was great because the 
fathers had not obeyed the book, — a book about which they 
could have known nothing ? 

It can hardly be doubted that this " legal fiction " theory is a 
pure invention, designed to make the doctrine coucerning the 
origin of the Mosaic Code less objectionable to the Christian 
public. None of the other champions of the newer hypothesis 
seem to know anything about this " fiction." Kuenen 3 is very 
plain-spoken : " It is certain that an author of the seventh cen- 
tury B. c. — following in the footsteps of others, for example, of 
the writer of the Book of the Covenant — has made Moses him- 
self proclaim that which, in his opinion, it was expedient in the 
real interests of the Mosaic party to announce and introduce. . . . 
Men used to perpetrate such fictions without any qualms of con- 
science. . . . The author and his party cannot have made the 
execution of their programme depend upon a lucky accident. 
If Hilkiah found the book in the temple, it was put there by the 
adherents of the Mosaic tendency. Or else Hilkiah was of their 
number, and in that case he pretended that he had found the 
book of the law. ... It is true, this deception is much more 

tion that anything like disinterestedness in Hilkiah is to be regarded as alto- 
gether out of the question. 

1 The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, p. 363. 

2 Ibid., p. 351. 

8 Religion of Israel, vol. ii. pp. 18, 19. 



CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 379 

unjustifiable still than the introduction of Moses as speaking. 
But we must reflect here also that the ideas of those days were 
not the same as ours, but considerably less strict. ' Now or 
never ' the Mosaic party had to gain their end." Here then it 
is squarely avowed that the successful introduction of the new 
code, and the securing of Josiah's adoption of it, were the result 
of a bold artifice, a " deception," an end gained by " cunning," — 
a thing not to be wondered at, since " at all times and in all 
countries faction and intestine quarrels have stifled delicacy in 
the choice of means." x 

Inasmuch as we find no trace in the Bible itself that either 
the Deuteronomic or the Levitical legislation was generally 
known to be ascribed to Moses only by a legal fiction; inasmuch as 
rulers and kings enacted new regulations without ever suggesting 
that their laws were Mosaic ; 2 inasmuch as it is certain that the 
laws in question were generally regarded as really the laws of 
Moses ; inasmuch as the narrative in 2 Kings xxii. itself plainly 
implies that the law there spoken of was either a genuine law of 
Moses or else one supposed to be such, — it is pretty plain that, 
if the book " found " by Hilkiah was a new book, it must have 
owed its successful introduction, not to a " legal fiction " which 
deceived nobody, but to an illegal fiction which deceived every- 
body, including the king himself, whose co-operation it was 
of the utmost importance to secure in carrying out the new 
"programme." 3 

1 Religion of Israel, vol. ii. p. 19. Riehm (Gesetzgebung Mosis im Lande 
Moab, pp. 112-114) likewise calls the procedure a " fiction." He excuses it 
at first by the citation of the pseudonymy in Ecclesiastes ; but he recognizes 
the difference between this and a fiction whose object was "to secure authority 
and recognition for the new law-book," and therefore adds, " From our moral 
standpoint we cannot justify the proceeding of the Deuteronomist ; in the light 
of the ' law of perfect liberty ' (James i. 25) it appears after all as somewhat 
dishonest [2i?ilauter~]." He excuses the act, however, on the ground that the 
author undoubtedly regarded tne new legislation as in the spirit of Moses, " so 
that Moses, if he had foreseen the future circumstances, would certainly have 
said the same thing, and instituted tne same changes." But Biehm had not 
discovered the " legal fiction" which everybody knew to be fiction ! 

2 Cf. Prof. W. H. Green, Professor Robertson Smith on the Pentateuch, in 
Presbyterian Review, January, 1882. 

3 Dean Perowne, The Age of the Pentateuch {Contemporary Review, 1888, 



380 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

If any further proof of this be needed, it may be found in 
abundance in the form and setting both of the so-called Priestly 
Code and of Deuteronomy. They are both made to have all the 
appearance of laws enacted in the time of Moses himself. 
Not only are they ascribed to him, but they are interwoven 
with a history which connects it with that same period. The 
form of the laws is largely adapted only to the manner of life 
which Israel led while on the way from Egypt to Canaan. 1 And 
when, as especially in Deuteronomy, the legislation is adapted 
to the more settled life of Palestine, it is still represented as a 
future condition. 2 At whatever time the books were composed, 
the intention must have been to give them the appearance of 
having originated under Moses. The " legal fiction " of ascribing 
the laws to him did not require the invention of a historic set- 
ting which to the later generations could have had no use and no 
meaning, if it was understood to he fictitious history. Especially 

pp. 255 sqq.), forcibly exposes the weakness of Professor Smith's assumption 
that it was " of no consequence " to Josiah or any one else where the new code 
came from. " Why did the mere fact of its coming as a Code give it a force 
which no prophetic utterance had ever possessed? Why should a Book of 
Law, backed by the prophets, but without any external credentials, work a 
revolution which centuries of prophetic teaching had failed to work ? " 

1 In Leviticus the ceremonial precepts are all connected with " the tent of 
meeting" and with camp life. Cf. i. 1-5, iii. 2, iv. 4, 12, vi. 11, etc. 

2 E. g., Deut. xii. 21, 29, xiii. 12, xvi. 2, xix. 1, etc. There is no ques- 
tion that the general coloring of the book is that of the Mosaic times. When 
Robertson Smith (1. c. p. 352) and others lay stress on the language of Deut. 
xii. 8, " Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every 
man whatsoever is right in his own eyes," as proving that the book must have 
been composed with reference to the times of Manasseh, they are obliged to 
assume that such an expression (as this in xii. 8) was not applicable to 
the times of Moses, and therefore must have crept into the code through an 
inadvertence, since the evident effort and design was to give the laws the 
appearance of having been issued by Moses. These same critics all assume 
the post -exilic date of Isa. xl.-lxvi., and make short work with the argument 
of those who oppose to their theory the fact that a few passages (such as 
xliii. 22-24) seem to imply that the temple worship is not suspended. But 
if the fact that Isa. xl.-lxvi. in general has the coloring of the time of the 
exile is made to overbear the force of a few passages which seem to fit an ear- 
lier period, why should not the same rule be equally valid as proving that 
Deuteronomy belongs to the Mosaic period? 



CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 381 

monstrous is the supposition which the Kuenen-Wellhausen 
theory stoutly maintains, that the whole detailed description of 
the tabernacle is a pure invention of the author or authors of 
the Priestly Code — no such tabernacle having ever been made. 
That is, we are asked to believe that, after the return from the 
captivity, a new ritual was introduced, designed for temple 
worship at Jerusalem, but studiously worded so as to be strictly 
appropriate only to the nomadic life of the wilderness and to a 
house of worship which never existed except in the laboriously 
idle fancy of the authors of the new code. If " every one knew," 
as Eobertson Smith would have us believe, that all this elaborate 
description of the tabernacle was only a part of the legal fiction, 
it is difficult to say who were the greater fools, the men who 
spent their time, ink, and parchment in describing this never- 
existent tabernacle, or the men who so readily submitted to the 
legislation of those who by this display of senseless ingenuity 
had effectually proved their unfitness to issue laws for national 
observance. 

But we have wasted too many words on this fiction of a 
"legal fiction." It is doubtful whether Eobertson Smith him- 
self adheres to it any longer. There is no consistent ground for 
the advocates of the new hypothesis to take but this : that the 
promulgators of the new codes studiously gave them the form 
of Mosaic laws in order to secure their acceptance and observ- 
ance on the part of the people ; in other words, that they prac- 
tised downright fraud in order to gain their " pious " purpose. 
We will not dwell on the critical difficulties which this theory 
of the " higher criticism " involves ; they are many and weighty, 
and have been ably set forth. 1 What we here insist on is that, 

1 See especially W. H. Green, Moses and the Prophets, and The Jewish 
Feasts ; E. C. Bissell, The Pentateuch, its Origin and Structure; G. Vos, The 
Mosaic Origin of the Pentateuchal Codes; R. P. Smith, Introduction to the 
Pentateuch, in Comm. on Genesis (Ellicott's Old Testament Commentary), and 
Mosaic Authorship and Credibility of the Pentateuch {Present Bay Tracts, No. 
15) ; E. Watson, The Law and the Prophets; G. Warington, When was the 
Pentateuch Written ? ; H. A. Strack, art. Pentateuch, in Herzog's Pealency- 
clopddie, 2d ed. ; E. Delitzsch, Pentateuch-kritische Studien in Zeitschrift fiir 
kirchliche Wissenschaft nnd kirchliches Leben, 1880 ; E. E. Konig, Haupt- 
probleme der altisraelitischen Religionsgeschichte, 1884 ; the same translated : 



382 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

in any discussion of the question of the age and character of 
the Old Testament books, the inherent probability or improb- 
ability of deliberate deception having been resorted to in order 
to secure the adoption of certain books of law and history is 
one of the elements to be taken account of by the higher criti- 
cism. This criticism deals very largely in speculations, in prob- 
abilities, in combinations ; indeed it consists almost wholly in 
these things. It cannot claim for itself more than that it makes 
out a high degree of probability for its hypotheses. But if it is 
legitimate, in defense of their theses, for the critics to indulge 
in speculations, and to conjecture what under given circum- 
stances must have been inherently probable ; if, for example, it 
is legitimate to argue that it is, psychologically and historically 
considered, unlikely that the Pentateuchal codes in their fuller 
form could, if of Mosaic origin, have ever become so neglected 
or even forgotten as the rare and dubious allusions to them in 
the historic books would seem to indicate, then it is equally 
legitimate to reason that, from a psychological and historical 
point of view, it is in the highest degree unlikely that a new code 
could have been introduced and enforced on the strength of a false 
allegation that it was really an old code. If the former argumen- 
tation, then surely no less the latter, has a place in the domain of 
the " higher criticism." It has this place even if we treat Hebrew 
history as profane history ; it has it all the more, if we hold that 
that history was shaped by special supernatural guidance. 

Let us not be misunderstood. It is perfectly proper for 
scholars to examine the Scriptures, and to investigate the ques- 
tion of their composition, with the utmost freedom and thorough- 
ness. The more of this research there is, the better. Nothing 
but good can come from whatever facts can be discovered re- 
specting the origin and characteristics of the Bible. Even 
though old impressions may be contradicted, no harm can ensue. 
No truth is intrinsically injurious. If it is true that Genesis is 

The Religious History of Israel, Edinburgh, 1885 ; C. J. Bredenkamp, Gesetz 
unci Propheten, 1881 ; J. J. S. Perowne, The Age of the Pentateuch {Contempo- 
rary Review, 1888). The time has certainly not come for assuming the new 
hypothesis as established, and attempting to popularize it, as is done by Prof. 
C. H. Toy, in The History of the Religion of Israel, Boston, 1883. 



CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 383 

made up of two or more documents woven together ; if it is true 
that not all of the Pentateuch, or even that the smaller part of 
it, was committed to writing by Moses himself, — what reason is 
there for hesitating to accept these results of critical research ? 
Nothing of real value is lost by the admission. There is noth- 
ing in the Bible itself which would be contradicted by such 
discoveries. Even though the new doctrine on these points be 
only made strongly probable, and by no means certain, there is 
no reason why it may not be adopted. The adoption does not 
involve any impeachment of the divine veracity ; it does not 
conflict with any statement in the Pentateuch itself. Questions 
of date and authorship, of editorial arrangement and super- 
scription, of mistakes in transcription, of intentional or unin- 
tentional interpolations, and other like questions often can be 
settled only by critical investigation. Traditional opinions on 
these matters have at the most only the presumption in their 
favor ; they have no prescriptive right to hold the field against 
the force of clear evidence. Christians may honestly differ on 
the question whether the traditional views have in any particular 
case been really overthrown ; but the new views which critics 
advocate can be successfully opposed only by critical weapons. 

And even when the dispute relates to alleged forgery and 
deliberate falsification of history, the defenders of the genu- 
ineness and credibility of the portions of the Bible thus 
assailed do well to meet critical attack with critical defense. 
The defense is most satisfactory when it repulses the enemy on 
his own chosen ground. Bat it does not follow that if, on that 
ground, the result of the conflict may at the best appear to be 
somewhat doubtful, the Christian believer is to yield up his 
cherished faith. No; there is another weapon which he may 
and will use, and cannot be made to surrender : he will maintain 
an unconquerable conviction that God cannot have allowed the 
record of his revelation to be adulterated and vitiated by 
fraud and forgery. Christian insight and feeling have a validity 
of their own. He to whom the Gospel of John has been his 
choicest spiritual food may rejoice to see the fierce assaults 
that have been made upon its genuineness and authenticity over- 
come by critical weapons. But even without these that Gospel 



384 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

would doubtless hold its position as a genuine and authentic 
work, by virtue of that Christian judgment which instinctively 
rejects the allegation that it is a " cunningly-devised fable," 
skilfully simulating the appearance of being the work of John, 
though in fact the work of some unknown man living at least 
half a century after John was dead. By this it is not meant 
that there is in the ordinary Christian a "critical feeling" 
which enables him to settle intuitively all questions of author- 
ship and authenticity that may be raised. The meaning simply 
is that, the truth and divine authority of Christianity being to 
the Christian world an established fact, hypotheses which ex- 
plicitly or implicitly involve the rejection of this fundamen- 
tal conviction must be a priori rejected. Christians can- 
not be forever re-examining the foundations of their faith. It 
may indeed be held that Christianity is not identical with 
the Biblical books, and that therefore many of these may 
be acknowledged to be spurious or unauthentic, while yet the 
essential truths of Christianity are retained. But no one can 
ever know what the essential truths of Christianity are, if all 
the records of its origin are liable to be pronounced, one after 
the other, a work of the imagination. If the Christian religion 
is assumed to be divine, then whatever allegations are made 
requiring us to believe that the Christian Church and the Chris- 
tian Scriptures owe the commanding position they have ac- 
quired to fraud, whether pious or impious, — no matter how 
ingeniously or plausibly the allegations may be sustained, the 
Christian may, without bigotry and with the soundest reason, 
reply, " I will not believe it." For at the most the attacks on the 
genuineness of the canonical books never have succeeded, and 
never will succeed, in establishing anything more than a greater or 
less degree of probability that fraud and forgery have played a 
part in determining the contents of the Scriptural Canon. Over 
against this probability will always stand, in the Christian mind, 
the still greater probability that God would not have allowed his 
Church to make the work of deceivers a part of its permanent 
canon of faith and practice, and that Jesus Christ would not 
have set upon such fraud the stamp of his endorsement. 

For the ugly fact cannot be winked out of sight, or in any 



CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 385 

way be got rid of, that if the theory is correct which is often 
boastfully said to have secured the assent of all the scholars 1 
whose opinion is worth anything, then Christ is made to ratify, 
as of divine authority, a book which according to the theory 
is largely a work of forgery and falsification of history. It 
makes little difference whether his ratification of the divine 
authority of the Old Testament is supposed to have been given 
in ignorance of the facts which the critics think they have 
brought to light, or whether he endorsed the book as divine, 
although knowing that it was, to a great extent, fraudulent and 
fictitious. In either case an assumption is made respecting the 
Eedeemer which the ordinary and healthy instinct of the 
Christian will unhesitatingly repudiate. The critics themselves 
may in some cases attempt to combine the holding of their 
hypothesis with a genuine faith in Christ as the Mediator and 
Saviour. But they can do so only by a process of mind similar 
to that of Pomponatius, Cesalpini, and other philosophers of the 
Italian Renaissance, who are said to have undertaken to dis- 
tinguish between truths of philosophy and truths of faith in 
such a way that both could be held, though in direct collision 
with one another. 2 The common mind cannot satisfy itself by 
any such self-mystification. The course of reasoning it will 
adopt is short, but conclusive : If Jesus was either so ignorant 
as not to know that the Scriptures to which he ascribed divine 
authority were vitiated by fraud, or so unscrupulous as to 
endorse them although he knew of the fraud, then he cannot 
be the Truth, the Way, and the Life. But we are sure that in 
him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge, and 
that therefore he cannot have been either thus ignorant or thus 
unscrupulous ; consequently we cannot and will not believe 
any one who pretends to have discovered that the Bible is full 
of fictitious history, fraudulent legislation, and supposititious 
homilies. We have not so learned Christ. 

1 All the younger scholars, it is often remarked, as if that were a special 
recommendation of the theory. 

2 Cf. Cousin, History of Modern Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 51 (Wight's trans- 
lation) ; Ritter, Die christliche Philosophic, vol. ii. pp. 35 sqq. Ritter, however, 
questions the justice of the charge that Pomponatius was hypocritical in 
assenting to the Christian faith. 

25 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX. 



EXCUKSUS I.i 

DR. MAUDSLEY ON THE VALIDITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 

TVR. MAUDSLEY 2 says, "If you would know what is the 
*^ positive value of the direct deliverances of an individual 
consciousness, you must compare with it the deliverances of con- 
sciousness in other persons ; it must be supplemented and corrected 
by these aids in the social organism, as one sense is supplemented 
and corrected by another sense in the bodily organism." Again 
he says : 8 " A logical inference, the perception of a general law, 
a mathematical demonstration, the certainty of an arithmetical 
calculation, the confidence of each daily action among men and 
things, the understanding of another's language and the certainty 
that mine in turn will be understood, — all these appeal, as it 
were, to some certainty in which is more than myself. It is 
the common mind of the race in me, which belongs to me as to 
one of my kind, — the common sense of mankind, if you will. 
Because the kind is in me and I am a living element of it, 
I cannot help silently acknowledging its rules and sanctions. 
There is no rule to distinguish between true and false but the 
common judgment of mankind, no rule to distinguish between 
virtue and vice but the common feeling of mankind. Wherefore 
the truth of one age is the fable of the next, the virtue of one 
epoch or nation the vice of another epoch or nation, and the 
individual that is deranged has his private truth-standard that 
is utterly false." Again : 4 "To descant upon the self-sufficiency 
of an individual's self-consciousness is hardly more reasonable 
than it would be to descant upon the self-sufficiency of a single 
sense. The authority of direct personal intuition is the author- 
ity of the lunatic's direct intuition that he is the Messiah ; the 
vagaries of whose mad thoughts cannot be rectified until he can 

1 See p. 11. 2 Body and Will, p. 40. 

8 Ibid., pp. 41, 42. < Ibid., p. 44. 



390 APPENDIX. 

be got to abandon his isolating self-sufficiency and to place 
confidence in the assurances and acts of others." This is 
sufficiently emphatic, and seems to coincide substantially with 
what we have laid down as to the importance and indispen- 
sableness of the corroborative testimony of other men in order 
to perfect confidence in our individual experiences. But under- 
neath these strong affirmations lies the tacit assumption that 
the individual has somehow become assured that there are other 
persons, and that these other persons are trustworthy. This 
conviction must be antecedent to the use which is made 
of the corroborative testimony of these fellow-beings. The 
individual must first be sure of the reality of these beings 
before he can accept their testimony. The question, then, 
cannot but be raised whether here at least we must not hold 
to the "self-sufficiency of an individual's self-consciousness." 
If this self-consciousness which makes known to us our fellow- 
beings is not self-sufficient, but needs to be confirmed or rectified 
by the consciousness of others, there is absolutely no escape 
from the circle ; there will never be any assured knowledge at 
all. For according to the supposition, in order to get the needed 
corroborative or corrective testimony, we must first be assured 
of the reality of the witnesses ; and if we must have the 
testimony of others in order to assure us of the reality of the 
witnesses, then we must have what, according to the supposition, 
we cannot get. There must be somewhere an immediate, in- 
tuitive, self-sufficient cognition ; if not, the child can never get 
beyond having an experience of sensations about the correctness 
or the meaning of which he has no knowledge. 

This power of coming to the knowledge of other persons — a 
power implied in all psychological theories — is, when distinctly 
seen and recognized, fatal both to pure idealism and to pure ma- 
terialism. Maudsley himself puts vigorously the dilemma of the 
idealist : 1 "If there be a world of consciousness external to me, 
and if the only reality be in consciousness, then my real exist- 
ence to another person is in his consciousness, — that is, external 
to myself ; and his real existence to me in like manner in my 
consciousness, — that is, external to him. But where does he get 
his consciousnesss of me, seeing that he can't get at my con- 
sciousness, which is the only real me ; and where do I get con- 
sciousness of him, seeing that I can't get at his consciousness ? 
1 Body and Will, pp. 53, 54. 



THE VALIDITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 391 

He has got my real existence in him, and I have got his real ex- 
istence in me, notwithstanding that we have not the least power 
of getting at one another's consciousnesses, which are the only 
realities. All which is a triumph of philosophy, or a reductio ad 
absurdum, according to the light in which one elects to view it." 
All very good, as a refutation of pure idealism. And yet ideal- 
ism has every way the advantage of pure materialism, and in 
some relations seems even to have the advantage of every other 
system. For it rests on the reality of consciousness, as the one 
absolutely irrefutable fact ; the reality of the outward world can 
be doubted, whereas the reality of the modifications of conscious- 
ness cannot be. But idealism rigidly carried out makes it impos- 
sible for one mind to recognize the reality of another. For such 
recognition, as men are now constituted, can take place only 
through the medium of the body. We can become aware of 
other minds only by becoming aware, first, of bodies external to 
ourselves. The mind is inferred from the bodily manifestations. 
If, therefore, these bodies are merely the affections of our minds, 
their esse being only a per dpi, then a fortiori the minds which 
seem to animate those bodies have no objective existence. And 
so each man, according to strict idealism, must regard his own 
consciousness as the only real thing. But this reduces the whole 
theory to pure absurdity. 1 

1 Berkeley {Principles of Human Knowledge, sect. 145) touches veiy lightly on 
this point, hardly appearing to anticipate that any one could regard it as involving any 
difficulty. He says : " It is plain that we cannot know the existence of other spirits 
otherwise than by their operations, or the ideas by them excited in us. I perceive 
several motions, changes, and combinations of ideas, that inform me there are certain 
particular agents, like myself, which accompany them and concur in their production. 
Hence the knowledge I have of other spirits is not immediate, as is the knowledge of 
my ideas ; but depending on the intervention of ideas, by me referred to agents or 
spirits distinct from myself, as effects or concomitant signs." But this is a very inade- 
quate explanation on Berkeley's own theory. According to him, things are nothing but 
ideas, that is, sensations. Even the brain " exists only in the mind " {Second Dialogue 
between Eylas and Philonous, Works, vol. i. p. 301, Frazer's ed.). "Whatever we per- 
ceive exists only as it is perceived. Consequently what one calls the bodies of other 
men can exist only in one's own mind. At the best, one can only distinguish between 
the vague, irregular impressions of dreams or arbitrary fancies and the involuntary im- 
pressions which are commonly conceived as produced by external nature. This differ- 
ence leads Berkeley to argue that the involuntary and orderly impressions, since we are 
conscious of not producing them, must be produced by another will, namely, God's. 
So far his argument is valid enough. But it amounts only to this : that the subjective 
impressions are caused by an external power, or will ; it does not prove that there is any 



392 APPENDIX. 

But, on the other hand, how is materialism affected by this same 
fact of the mutual recognition of minds ? The strict materialist 
comes, only by a different process, to substantially the same result 

reality corresponding to these impressions ; still less does it prove that these ideas, or 
things, exist to the mind of God in the sense of "being perceived by him. Yet this is 
Berkeley's constant assumption : Things exist only as perceptions ; esse est percipi. 
Consequently, he says, these objects of perception must be perceived by God, and in 
this sense are real. But obviously there is a fallacy here. Our perception is gained by 
means of the various senses ; Berkeley says that when several ideas accompany one 
another, they come to be marked by one name, as apple, stone, etc. (sect. 1, Principles). 
Here is a double assumption : (1) A distinction of senses is assumed — of sight, smell, 
hearing, etc., as if the organs of these senses were distinct realities. Consistency 
requires him to say, "My eye exists only in my mind; also colors exist only in my 
mind. All that I know about them is that I have an impression of them. But I have 
no right to speak as if my eye perceived colors, or even as if my mind through my eye, 
perceived colors." But (2) it is assumed that, though things exist only as they are 
perceived, it is not necessary to suppose them to go out of existence every time they are 
unperceived by any finite mind, since God perceives them constantly. But evidently 
this is a pure assumption. According to the main hypothesis a thing is only as it is 
perceived. The persistency and iuvoluntariness of the perception lead to the assump- 
tion of an outward, divine power which causes the perception. But that is a very dif- 
ferent thing from a divine being perceiving the same things, and perceiving them 
constantly. The fact that I perceive may indicate that I am caused to perceive ; but 
when one says that therefore the causer perceives the same things, and perceives them 
when no other being is perceiving them, there is a manifest non sequitur. Moreover, 
the human perception is inferred not to be a mere illusion only from the fact of its in- 
voluntariness. Consistency then would require that the divine perception be also invol- 
untary. But this would imply the absolute existence of the perceived objects. 

But to come to the question of other finite spirits. Their existence is inferred, says 
Berkeley, from certain motions, changes, and combinations of ideas. But how are we 
to determine which of these are caused by finite spirits, and which by the Divine 
Spirit? His only solution is simply in the assertion (sect. 146) that "though there 
be some things which convince us human agents are concerned in producing them, yet 
it is evident to every one that those things which are called the Works of Nature, that 
is, the far greater part of the ideas or sensations perceived by us, are not produced by, 
or dependent on, the wills of men. There is, therefore, some other Spirit that causes 
them." This is quite astonishing. On his ground there is no warrant for distinguish- 
ing between different kinds of outward agents. One can only be sure that his own will 
is not the cause of all his ideas. He can never be sure that other beings like himself, 
as distinguished from an omnipotent and universal agent, cause those ideas. On his 
theory no idea, i. e. perceived object, can produce effects. Only the will does this. 
Consequently one cannot at the best know more than that certain motions, etc., are per- 
ceived in apparent connection with certain bodies. That a will is connected with the 
body, as the cause of the motions, cannot be inferred. But even if it could be, the per- 
ception of other human beings would thus be made a matter of inference of which only 
a comparatively mature mind is capable ; whereas the perception is in fact one of the 
very earliest experiences of the infant. 



THE VALIDITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 393 

as the strict idealist. Instead of positing an immaterial mind as 
the organ of consciousness, he posits a material organism, and 
assumes that one of its functions is to think — to conceive of a 
universe of material objects of various forms and characteristics 
as existing around it. But Dr. Maudsley himself assures us that 
this individual conception is of no value until it has been supple- 
mented and corrected by that of other consciousnesses. ' ; My 
subjective states," he says, 1 "are to be appraised by another's 
objective observation of them in their modes of outward expres- 
sion, as his subjective states are to be appraised by my objective 
observation of them." The individual organism, therefore, can 
only be sure of its own impressions ; whether an objective reality 
corresponds to those impressions is, in itself, quite a matter of 
uncertainty, — until this organism has learned that other organ- 
isms have the same experience. But here there presents itself 
again the same dilemma as before : How is the man in question, 
in the first place, ever to be sure of the fact that there is another 
organism like his own ? He has certain sensations, certain im- 
pressions concerning other beings like himself ; but, according to 
the theory maintained, those are mere impressions, having no 
authoritative value until confirmed by the impressions of those 
same other organisms. That is, I cannot be sure that other men 
really exist, until I know that they tell me that they exist. But 
how can I ever know that they tell me so, unless I am first con- 
vinced that they are real beings ? The testimony of a being of 
doubtful reality must necessarily be testimony of doubtful value. 
And so on this theory one must be forever precluded from ever 
coming to a state of assured conviction about anything. But 
Maudsley calmly assures us, 2 that " the worth of the testimony 
of consciousness as to an external world may well be greater than 
the worth of its subjective testimony, since it is pretty certain that 
the consciousnesses of other persons, and the consciousnesses of 
animals, in so far as they are similarly constituted, give the same 
kind of evidence." In short, he quietly takes for granted the 
very thing which his theory makes inadmissible and impossible ; 
he assumes that, in spite of the utter untrustworthiness of the 
individual consciousness, it has nevertheless, all by itself, become 
certain, not only of the reality of other men, but also of the 
reality of their consciousness, — and not only this, but also of 
the fact that their consciousnesses coincide with his own ! 
1 Body and Will, pp. 40, 41. 2 Ibid., p. 52. 



394 APPENDIX. 

Here we have precisely the same dilemma into which Maudsley 
crowds the idealist. In fact, idealism and materialism easily 
pass into each other. In the one case the individual is con- 
ceived as thinking mind, in the other as thinking matter, — in 
both cases as a conscious unit, able to think of itself and to re- 
ceive sensations. But in either case there is an impassable gulf 
between the mere fact of sensation or consciousness and the 
assurance that there is an external world distinct from the con- 
scious individual. The idealist may be content to infer a material 
world from his conscious sensations, or he may deny that there is 
any such thing as a material world ; in either case he denies that 
we directly know anything about a world of matter. Just so the 
consistent materialist finds himself debarred from any certain 
knowledge of anything but his own impressions. It makes no 
difference with the real problem, when he assumes that the perci- 
pient or thinking agent is a material organism, and not an imma- 
terial mind. There is precisely the same difficulty — the same 
impossibility — which the idealist has in getting over the gulf 
which separates the conscious individual from the rest of the 
world. In either case it is only by an illogical leap — a salto 
mortale — that the philosopher comes to his belief and assurance 
that he is in the midst of a world of beings like himself. 

But the materialistic theory has still further difficulties to en- 
counter. There is not merely the preliminary one, that the in- 
dividual sentient organism has legitimately no way of learning 
that there is an external world in general, or in particular that 
there are other material organisms like his own ; there is the 
further difficulty, that he can still less assuredly learn that other 
organisms are sentient and conscious like himself. Let it be 
assumed that I can somehow become cognizant of the real exist- 
ence of an outward world, and, in that world, of organic as dis- 
tinguished from inorganic, bodies ; I am still far from an assured 
knowledge that any of these organisms think and feel as I do. 
In order to get such a knowledge, I must be able to communi- 
cate with them by means of some sort of language} Without 
this there is an absolutely impassable barrier between the two 
organisms. Even though they be assumed to be cognizant of one 

1 In this argument it is not overlooked that brntes communicate with one another, 
though they have no language in the ordinary sense of the word. But they do have a 
sort of language ; by means of sounds and visible signs they make themselves under- 
stood to one another. 



THE VALIDITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 395 

• another, they cannot compare their cognitions, and thus corrobo- 
rate one another's impressions of things, unless they can exchange 
thoughts in mutually intelligible language. But language is 
essentially and purely a mental product and agent. Whatever our 
definition of mind may be, even though it be pronounced to be noth- 
ing but thinking matter, language has no relation to it except as it 
is a thinking thing. There is no inherent and necessary corre- 
spondence between words and things. The same thing is desig- 
nated in different languages by the most diverse terms ; and all 
alike appear to be entirely arbitrary. Always and everywhere lan- 
guage is the product and expression of conceptions, — of mental 
states. The language may consist simply in physical gestures ; but 
the meaning of it concerns that which cannot be discerned by any 
of the senses. A thought cannot be seen, heard, felt, tasted, or 
smelt. How does the organism come to recognize the meaning of 
these apparently arbitrary symbols ? How can the "hemispheri- 
cal ganglia " of one body, by means of a word or a visible sign, 
become aware of what is going on in the " motor centres " of 
another body ? Let it be supposed to have been made ever so 
clear how a particular organism can come to have mental experi- 
ences by virtue of " specialization " and " integration ; " let it be 
conceded that by " the education of the motor centres " the or- 
ganism becomes able to form mental conceptions ever so refined. 
Yet the mystery is still unsolved, how these conceptions can be 
communicated by one organism to another, — how the other 
organism, which can by no possibility see the " motor nerves " 
or " the mind-centres " which do the thinking or the willing, can 
yet learn what the thinking is about. Dr. Maudsley says : " Few 
persons, perhaps, consider what a wonderful art speech is, or even 
remember that it is an art which we acquire. But it actually 
costs us a great deal of pains to learn to speak ; all the language 
which an infant has is a cry ; and it is only because we begin to 
learn to talk when we are very young, and are constantly prac- 
tising, that we forget how specially we have had to educate our 
motor centres of speech." * Very true ; and perhaps it may be 
added that Dr. Maudsley himself has failed to grasp the true 
wonderfulness of speech. He recognizes indeed that each word 
has " no independent vitality," and is even " nothing more than 
a conventional sign or symbol to mark the particular muscular 
expression of a particular idea." 2 The real marvel, however, is 
1 Body and Mind, p. 25. 2 Ibid., p. 26. 



396 APPENDIX. 

not in the fact that children have to learn language by a laborious 
process ; the marvel is — especially on the materialistic theory — 
how they ever learn at all, or, supposing that they can learn, as 
parrots can, that they come to understand what these words really 
represent in the minds of their teachers. They are conventional 
signs, Maudsley says ; but how did these mechanical organisms, 
every motion of which is determined by rigid natural forces, ever 
come to agree to make these arbitrary signs have certain mean- 
ings ? Maudsley says that these articulate signs came to be 
so used simply because they are the most " convenient for the 
expression of our mental states." This is very true ; but it does 
not explain how they come to be understood as the expression of 
mental states. The real mystery, quite overlooked by the ma- 
terialistic explanation, is in the possibility of the communication 
between two " mind-centres," — the possibility of agreeing to 
make certain arbitrary sounds the representatives of mental 
states. Even though one of the material organisms may be sup- 
posed to be determined by some occult natural force to connect 
a certain sound with a certain object ; yet this does not explain 
how another organism comes to understand what object is repre- 
sented by that sound. In short, the recognition of personality 
in beings other than ourselves must precede our understanding of 
their language. 1 Otherwise all their words and gestures would 
have no more meaning to us than the moaning and swaying of 
trees in the wind or the dashing and babbling of a brook. 

1 " It may be questioned whether this [power to recognize personality other than 
our own] is to be accounted for without postulating the existence of a higher kind of 
instinctive intelligence than that which is needed for the recognition of an external 
world." — Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, p. 150. 



THE COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. 397 



EXCURSUS II. 1 

THE COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. 

IV TODEElSr evolutionists cannot all be indiscriminately put 
■ LVJ - into one category. Many of them are genuine theists and 
Christians. Others are unmitigated atheists and materialists ; 2 
while still others, though radically opposed to the characteristic 
doctrines of Christian theism, yet repudiate with indignation 
both these names, and are scarcely more willing to be called 
pantheists. 3 It is easy here to fall into logomachy. The dis- 
tinction between atheism and pantheism is itself hard to draw. 
But now we have to deal with those who, while holding views 
which would commonly be called pantheistic, if not atheistic, 
strenuously insist that they are the only true theists. So, for 
example, Mr. Fiske, 4 who emphatically denies that the Absolute 
Being can be personal (an attribute commonly supposed to char- 
acterize the God of the theist), and maintains that every other 
form of theism than his own is beset with insoluble difficulties. 
What now is his doctrine ? " Our choice," he says, 5 " is no 
longer between an intelligent Deity and none at all ; it lies be- 
tween a limited Deity and one that is without limit." The 
necessary inference from this is that the Deity is not intelligent. 
An " infinite Person " is expressly declared to be as unthinkable 
as a " circular triangle." * Anthropomorphic Theism " is the 
name given to the ordinary theism ; but in place of it is put a 
theism which affirms a Being who, though not a person, is as 
much higher than Humanity as the heavens are higher than the 
earth. 6 In this Mr. Fiske is a faithful follower of Mr. Spencer, 
who asks us, 7 "Is it not just possible that there is a mode of 
being as much transcending Intelligence and Will as these tran- 
scend mechanical motion ? It is true that we are totally unable 
to conceive any such higher mode of being. But this is not a 

1 See p. 33. 

2 Such as Carl Vogt, Moleschott, Biiclmer. Professor Flint {Anti-theistic Theories, 
Lect. iv.) calls Mr. Spencer and his followers materialists. 

3 E. g., John Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 423. 4 Ibid., p. 408. 
6 Ibid. 6 Ibid., p. 451. ' First Principles, § 31. 



398 APPENDIX. 

reason for questioning its existence ; it is rather the reverse." 
But further : Mr. Fiske x is very sure that, " if goodness and 
intelligence are to be ascribed to the Deity, it must be goodness 
and intelligence of which we have some rudimentary knowledge 
as manifested in humanity ; otherwise our hypothesis is unmean- 
ing verbiage." And then he goes on to affirm that it is impos- 
sible to ascribe goodness to a Being of infinite power and fore- 
knowledge who should have created such a world of suffering as 
our world is. "As soon as we seek to go beyond the process of 
evolution disclosed by science, and posit an external Agency 
which is in the slightest degree anthropomorphic, we are obliged 
to supplement and limit this Agency by a second one that is dia- 
bolic, or else to include elements of diabolism in the character 
of the first Agency itself." Plainly all this means that the Abso- 
lute Being is not intelligent, and is not moral in any sense that 
would not be " unmeaning verbiage." But in the same book, at a 
later point, 2 he says that the "Inscrutable Power" may "be pos- 
sibly regarded as quasi-psychical." In another book he leaves 
sometimes the " quasi " off, and calls the Infinite Power simply 
" psychical," 3 and moreover affirms that " we know, however the 
words may stumble in which we try to say it, that God is in the 
deepest sense a moral being." 4 Accordingly we are to under- 
stand that God is not intelligent, but is psychical ; he is not good, 
but he is moral ! 5 To be sure, the author takes pains to say that 
God's psychical nature is not, and cannot be, just like ours — in 
which all Christian philosophers will cordially agree with him. 
But what then becomes of his assertion that, if we retain the 
slightest degree of anthropomorphism, we cannot help making 
God either diabolic or finite ? For he now says expressly that 
"we can never get entirely rid of all traces of anthropomor- 

l Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii. pp. 406, 407. 2 Ibid., pp. 448, 449. 

3 Idea of God, Preface, p. xxiv, and p. 155. * Ibid., p. 167. 

5 It is to be presumed that, in ascribing psychicalness, and denying intelligence, to 
the Unknown Force, Spencerians mean something ; but it would be well if they would 
tell what they mean. If we are to judge from etymology and usage, the term " psychi- 
cal," if it is to be applied to any unintelligent being, must denote a constitution some- 
what like that of the lower animals, which have life (a xf/vx^l) and a sort of unconscious 
impulse which faintly resembles intelligence. Is then the Deity really conceived as 
intellectually a sort of magnified polyp ? If not, and if yet the Absolute Power is 
declared to be without consciousness (videTL. Spencer, Ecclesiastical Institutions, § 658, 
where this is elaborately argued), then to call that Power "psychical" is to use phrase- 
ology which has a philosophical sound, but which is absolutely meaningless. 



THE COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. 399 

phism," 1 and that " to every form of theism ... an anthropo- 
morphic element is indispensable. 2 Furthermore, while the teleo- 
logical arguments of Paley are scouted as entirely fallacious, he 
yet says that the " craving after a final cause " is " an essential ele- 
ment in man's religious nature," and " that there is a reasonable- 
ness in the universe, that in the orderly sequence of events there 
is a meaning which appeals to our human intelligence. 8 He avows 
his belief in the immortality of the soul " as a supreme act of 
faith in the reasonableness of God's work," and because to deny 
this persistence of the spiritual element in man " is to rob the 
whole process [of evolution] of its meaning." 4 So then God's 
work has a " meaning which appeals to our intelligence ; " yet 
God is himself not intelligent ! 

Now, when we have to judge of the theory of a man who thus 
states it in contradictory propositions, it is somewhat difficult to 
be sure of the correctness of our judgment. If, when he calls the 
Absolute Power "psychical" and "moral," he means what the 
words seem necessarily to mean, then he holds to the personality 
of God ; and we have no further controversy with him. But if 
he means by these terms nothing at all which implies a conscious 
personality working with a conscious purpose ; if his real mean- 
ing is that God is not intelligent in any intelligible sense, that 
he is not good in any human sense of goodness, — why, then we 
must deny to him the name of theist in any sense that would not 
be " unmeaning verbiage." 

But without undertaking to solve these contradictions, let us 
consider the implications and consequences of the system in 
general, in so far as it relates to our main purpose. One thing 
is certain : Evolutionists of the Spencerian type do not believe in 
a creation, — in an absolute commencement of the material uni- 
verse. " The Doctrine of Evolution is throughout irreconcilably 
opposed to the Doctrine of Creation ; " 5 so that, although the 

1 Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 449. 

2 Idea of God, p. 135. 
8 Ibid., p. 156. 

4 Destiny of Man, p. 115. It might be, and indeed has been, thought that in these 
later works Mr. Fiske has made an advance towards belief in a personal God ; but he 
himself, in the preface of the one last published {Idea of God), expressly denies that 
in that respect he has any new view. He only acknowledges that in the Cosmic Philoso- 
phy's theistic theory he did not adequately evolve what was involved, namely, the teleo- 
logical element indicated by man's place in nature (p. xxii). 

5 Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 376. 



400 APPENDIX. 

notion of the eternity of matter may be called unthinkable, 1 yet 
there is no alternative but to believe that matter never had a 
beginning. This is the assumption that underlies the system. 
The persistence of Force, which is assumed as an axiom, is only 
another expression for the same idea. Matter indestructible, 
Force persistent, — this means that there never has been, and 
never will be, any diminution in the amount of the material' 
universe. A sort of distinction may be made between Force and 
Matter, — Force being called "the ultimate of ultimates," and 
Matter " the differently conditioned manifestations of Force." 2 
That is, Force is the really objective thing ; Matter is the phe- 
nomenal form which Force assumes to the cognitive individual. 
Force is the Unknown Cause, Matter the perceived effect. But 
a distinction is again made, and " Force, as we know it," we are 
told, " can be regarded only as a certain conditioned effect of the 
Unconditioned Cause. . . . We are irresistibly compelled by the 
relativity of our thought vaguely to conceive some unknown 
force as the correlative of the known force." 3 That is, matter 
and known force are one and the same thing ; but we are obliged 
to postulate an unknown force as corresponding to the phe- 
nomena, or as producing them. 

Now it makes no essential difference, whether we say, with 
Spencer, that this unknown Force is the ultimate producer of 
the visible universe, or, with Tyndall, 4 that Matter itself is " the 
promise and potency of every form and quality of life." The 
upshot is the same : An unintelligent, unconscious agent is made 
the ultimate cause of all the palpable world of things, events, 
and persons. So long as the Absolute Force is assumed to be 
without intelligence and will, the difference between Force and 
Matter is a mere metaphysical difference ; it is only the differ- 
ence which divides physicists into the two groups of atomists 
and dynamists. If, as the latter hold, matter is nothing but 
force, then to hold that Force is the Ultimate and Absolute 
Reality is no less correctly to be called materialism than that 
doctrine which pronounces Matter to be the Fundamental Eeality, 
provided in both cases this Absolute or Fundamental Reality is 
declared to be unconscious and impersonal. If the Spencerian 
sticks consistently to this ground, then, though he may repudiate 

1 H. Spencer, First Principles, p. 31. 2 Ibid., p. 169. 

3 Ibid., p. 170. 

4 Belfast Address on the Advancement of Science, p. 77. 



THE COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. 401 

the name of materialist, or even declare that materialism is " irre- 
trievably doomed," x he can have no just ground for complaint, if 
the name is still applied to him. If he holds, with Spencer him- 
self, 2 that mental action is nothing but transformed physical 
force, the " result of some physical force expended in producing 
it," quite analogous to the transformation of physical forces into 
one another, it avails nothing to deprecate the name of material- 
ist. He who makes mind and mental action the simple result of 
physical forces, and absolutely dependent on a physical organism, 
makes mind by implication cease with the physical organism 
itself. 3 

But putting aside questions of personal consistency and mere 
terminology, let us come down to more vital matters. How does 
this Evolution theory leave the question of the cognition of 
truth ? Stated in brief, the theory is that knowledge is rela- 
tive, which doctrine (correct enough if properly defined) is here 
made to mean that in strictness " we know nothing directly save 
modifications of consciousness." The theory is Idealism, with 
the exception that there is assumed or inferred an Unknown 
Something which "causes the changes." 4 But it is also assumed 
that the Unknown Something " might generate," in a different 
being from man, "some state or states wholly different from 
what we know as the cognition of a material object." 5 Practi- 

1 Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 440. 
' 2 First Principles, § 71. 

8 Vide B. P. Bowne, Philosophy of Herbert Spencer, p. IS. Mr. Spencer, in his 
Principles of Psychology, vol. i. part ii. chap. L, does indeed seem sharply to distinguish 
between Mind and Matter, and even says that it would be easier to translate physical 
phenomena into mental phenomena than vice versa (p. 159). But the conclusion is 
that with reference both to the units of external force and to the units of feeling we 
only know them as presented in their symbols, and "no translation can carry us beyond 
our symbols " (p. 161). Ultimately "the conditioned form under which Being is pre- 
sented in the Subject cannot, any more than the conditioned form under which Being 
is presented in the Object, be the Unconditioned Being common to the two" (p. 1G2). 
Thus, after all, mind and matter are finally identified in the Unconditioned Being. They 
are only phenomenally distinct. Mr. Fiske {Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 444) quotes 
Spencer (p. 158), as arguing against the possibility of identifying a unit of feeling with 
a unit of motion. He finds it necessary to change Spencer's "nervous shock " into 
"psychical shock," adding that Mr. Spencer authorizes him to say that he (Mr. Spencer) 
"thoroughly approves of the emendation." It is noticeable, however, that in the third 
edition of the book, published seven years after the Cosmic Philosophy, the passage is 
left absolutely unchanged. 

* Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 86, 87. 5 Ibid., p. 81. 

26 



402 APPENDIX. 

cally the Cosmic Philosophy has all the strength and all the 
weakness of Idealism. Mr. Fiske 1 repudiates Berkeley's assump- 
tion of a divine will as producing in us these various states of 
consciousness, on the ground that " it is a hypothesis which can 
be neither proved nor disproved." But in place of God Mr. 
Fiske puts an Unknown Reality, the existence of which is also 
a pure hypothesis, which can be neither proved nor disproved, 
— certainly not on the principles of the Cosmic Philosophy. 
For, according to those principles, causation is something which 
we come to believe in simply through experience. Where an 
experience is absolutely uniform, we are unable not to think 
that the same conditions will be attended with the same ex- 
perience. If fire always burns, so far as our experience goes, 
then we are compelled to believe that it has always burned, 
and always will burn, simply because we cannot "transcend 
our experience." 2 But how, then, do we come to know any- 
thing about the Unknowable Something which is at the bottom 
of all our various states of consciousness ? Certainly, accord- 
ing to the theory in question, we have no experience of that 
Unknown Something whose existence is postulated. If the 
empirical theory of the notion of causation contains the whole 
truth, then there is no ground whatever for inferring the ex- 
istence of this Absolute Being, nor even for inferring the uni- 
versality of a connection of events, simply from the fact that we 
individually never experienced an exception. 

But Mr. Fiske does not long stick to his own explanation. 
When he asks the question, " What is the belief in the necessity 
and universality of causation?" he answers, "It is the belief that 
every event must be determined by some preceding event, and 
must itself determine some succeeding event." 3 Must be deter- 
mined ? Why must be ? We never have had any experience of 
such a necessity. But, we are told, an event " is a manifestation 
of force. The falling of a stone, the union of two gases," and 
every other event, up to " the thinking of a thought, the excite- 
ment of an emotion, — all these are manifestations of force." 4 
Of force ? What force ? One force ? or various forces ? And 
what is meant by force ? It is that which manifests itself in an 
event, — which is simply another way of saying that the force 
causes the event. And so the important result of the whole 

1 Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i. p. 76. 2 Ibid., pp. 146-149. 

8 Ibid., pp. 147, 148. 4 Ibid., p. 148. 



THE COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. 403 

matter is that our belief in the necessity and universality of 
causation is the belief that every event must have a cause ! If 
the author had propounded this as an ultimate dictum of con- 
sciousness, we might accept it as substantially a correct state- 
ment of the truth. But when it comes from one who can speak 
in no terms too contemptuous of those who pursue the " subjec- 
tive " or a -priori method of philosophizing, we are compelled to 
ask what else this is than an a priori assumption. But Mr. Fiske 
may reply that he discards the metaphysical notion of cause as im- 
plying an occulta vis u which operates as an invincible nexus be- 
tween it and the effect."' u Viewed under its subjective aspect/'' 
he tells us, " our knowledge of causation amounts simply to this. 
— that an experience of certain invariable sequences among phe- 
nomena has wrought in us a set of corresponding indissolubly 
coherent sequences among our states of consciousness ; so that 
whenever the state of consciousness answering to the cause 
arises, the state of consciousness answering to the effect in- 
evitably follows." And then we are further told that "the 
proposition that the cause constrains the effect to follow is an 
unthinkable proposition ; since it requires us to conceive the 
action of matter upon matter, which ... we can in no wise do/' 
" TVhat we do know is neither more nor less than what is given 
in consciousness : namely, that certain coexistences invariably 
precede or follow certain other coexistences.*" 1 

ZSTow to all this it might be replied that what is here affirmed 
as the essential element in the notion of causation, namely, the 
experience of an invariable sequence in consciousness correspond- 
ing to an invariable sequence in phenomena, is precisely not the 
essential thing. The burnt child dreads the fire, and assumes 
that the fire causes the burning after one experience, and does 
not go on indefinitely experimenting till it has satisfied itself 
that the experience is invariable ; moreover, that it is absolutely 
invariable could never be determined by mere experience. 2 But 
letting this pass, how is it that, if we cannot conceive of matter 
as acting on matter, we not only can, but must, according to this 

1 Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 154 ; 155. 

2 " This belief in the uniformity of the order of nature is an ultimate fact of mind. 
It is not produced by experience ; on the contrary, it anticipates experience." — J. J. 
Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, p. 96. Cf. J. Buchanan, Faith in God and Modern 
Atheism Compared, vol. i. p. 224; G. H. Lewes, History of Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 341 
(5th ed., 1S80). 



404 APPENDIX. 

same authority, conceive of an Absolute Reality as causing these 
changes in our consciousness ? Mr. Fiske does not deny the in- 
trinsic possibility of matter acting on matter, but simply affirms 
that we have no consciousness of it. 1 Very well ; but does he 
have any consciousness of this Absolute Power as generating 
within him his changes of consciousness ? The only ground he 
has for postulating this Unknown Something is that we must 
assume some such thing as the cause of the changes in us. 2 And 
yet this Something, he says, is " beyond consciousness." 3 There 
is certainly a great lack of luminous self-consistency in all this. 
But this is not all. What is it, according to this Cosmic Philoso- 
phy, which produces these changing states of consciousness in 
us ? At one time 4 we are told that they are " wrought " by an 
" experience of certain invariable sequences among phenomena ; " 
at another time, 5 that these changing states of consciousness are 
" caused " by the " noumenon," the Absolute but Unknown Some- 
thing. The two representations may indeed be reconciled, if the 
meaning is that the Something directly produces the phenomena, 
while the phenomena directly produce the states of conscious- 
ness. This seems to be implied in the statement elsewhere 6 
made, that "there is a single Being of which all phenomena, 
internal and external to consciousness, are manifestations." But 
what are we to understand by phenomena " external to conscious- 
ness " ? Inasmuch as all we know is " modifications of our con- 
sciousness," 7 what ground is there for distinguishing between the 
internal and external phenomena ? They are all internal ; and 
we therefore have no right to talk about " an experience of cer- 
tain invariable sequences among phenomena w working " in us a 
set of corresponding indissolubly coherent sequences among our 
states of consciousness." "What we mean by a tree," we are told, 
" is merely a congeries of qualities. ... If we were destitute of 
sight, touch, smell, taste, hearing, and muscular sensibility, all 
these qualities would cease to exist, and therefore the tree would 
cease to be a tree." 8 Here is pure Idealism, but less tenable 
than that of Berkeley ; for Berkeley consistently held that our 
intuitive belief in causation necessitates the assumption of an 

1 Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i. p. 155. 2 Ibid., p. 87- 

3 Ibid., p. 84, quoted approvingly from Spencer's Principles of Psychology, vol. i. 
p. 208. 

4 Ibid., p. 155. 5 Ibid., p. 87. 6 Ibid., p. 89. 
7 Ibid., pp. 86, 93. 8 Ibid., pp. 80, 81. 



THE COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. 405 

Intelligent Being who causes our sensations, whereas, when the 
Cosmic Philosophy assumes an " Unknown Reality which causes 
in us these groups of sensations," it is in open contradiction with 
its own theory of the notion of causation; since, as has been 
shown, to assume such an Unknown Reality, outside of conscious- 
ness, as the cause of the subjective phenomena, while at the same 
time causation is affirmed to be merely an experience of a certain 
constant correspondence in the phenomena inside of conscious- 
ness, is a most flagrant inconsistency. If the philosophy is to be 
made consistent with itself, we must retain what is fundamental 
in it, namely, the empirical theory of cognition, and abandon 
the assumption of an Absolute Reality about which we know 
nothing. 

But the point to which we are coming is this : "What evidence 
have we that any one of these states of consciousness really 
answers to anything distinct from itself? In other words, Is 
there any truth in these phenomena of the conscious mind ? 
When the fundamental postulates of the Development philoso- 
phy are divested of all illicit accretions, it is found to be an 
assertion that our states of consciousness are an ultimate fact, 
and that, strictly speakiDg, we know nothing else than that we 
have such and such thoughts and sensations. That they represent, 
or correspond to, any reality, we have no right to assert. Reality 
is nothing but " inexpugnable persistence in consciousness." 
What, then, is the test of truth ? Or, we may perhaps rather 
ask, what is truth ? The common conception of it is the agree- 
ment between our conceptions and objective fact. But when it is 
expressly maintained that we can know nothing about objective 
facts, how are we ever going to learn whether our conceptions do 
correspond to the objective facts ? Mr. Fiske says the above 
definition is a definition of Absolute Truth, whereas " the only 
truth with which we have any concern is Relative Truth ; " x and 
for relative truth he lays down the criterion : " When any given 
order among our conceptions is so coherent that it cannot be 
sundered except by the temporary annihilation of some one of 
its terms, there must be a corresponding order among phenomena." 
But why must there be ? " Because," it is added, " the order of 
our conceptions is the expression of our experience of the order 
of the phenomena." 2 But inasmuch as, on the theory in question, 

1 Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i. p. 70. 2 Ibid., p. 71. 



406 APPENDIX. 

phenomena are nothing but subjective experiences, this amounts 
only to saying that the order of our conceptions is what it is. 
Mr. Fiske illustrates the point by the case of the conception of 
iron as being that of something which will not float in water. 
"If the subjective order of my conceptions is such that the con- 
cept of a solid lump of iron and the concept of a body floating 
in water will destroy each other rather than be joined together, 
aud I therefore say that a solid lump of iron will not float in 
water, what do I mean by it ? Do I intend any statement con- 
cerning the unknown external thing, or things, which when acting 
upon my consciousness causes in me the perception of iron, and 
water, and floating or sinking ? By no means. I do not even 
imply that such modes of existence as iron or water, or such 
modes of activity as floating or sinking, pertain to the unknown 
external reality at all. . . . By my statement I only imply that 
whenever that same unknown thing, or things, acts upon my 
consciousness, or upon the consciousness of any being of whom 
intelligence can be properly predicated, there will always ensue 
the perception of iron sinking in water, and never the perception 
of iron floating in water." x But if the thing that acts on my con- 
sciousness is absolutely unknown, how can I legitimately speak 
about " that same unknown thing," as acting at different times and 
on different persons ? How can I identify this unknown thing 
at all ? How do I know, in case I have a repeated experience of 
the same sensation, that it is the same unknown thing that pro- 
duces it ? If the thing itself is unknown, then I cannot know 
enough about it to make any affirmation about it. I do not know 
but that different unknown things may make the same impression, 
or that the same unknown thing may make different impressions. 
In fact, on the theory under consideration, I really know nothing 
about the whole matter at all, except that I have such and such 
impressions, perceptions, conceptions, or whatever else my states 
of consciousness may be called. The sole test of truth, according 
to this philosophy, is our inability to " transcend our experience." 
"We cannot conceive that a lump of iron will float in water. 
"Why ? Because our conception of iron, formed solely by experi- 
ence, is that of a substance which sinks in water ; and to imagine 
it otherwise is to suppress the conception, either of iron or of 
water, and to substitute some other conception in its place." 2 

1 Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 69, 70. 

2 Ibid., p. 57. 



THE COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. 407 

And this is all that is meant when the general test is laid down, 
that "a proposition of which the negation is inconceivable is 
necessarily true in relation to human intelligence." 1 Experience 
determines, with respect to mathematical as well as physical 
truths, 2 what we can conceive. To the Indian prince who had 
never seen water frozen it was inconceivable that water should 
ever become hard. Why? Because his conception of water, 
formed solely by experience, was that of a substance which al- 
ways remains liquid. This conception of water was true to him. 
It was " relative truth," indeed ; but as relative truth is " the only 
truth with which we have any concern," it was genuine truth, — just 
as true as the conception of the Laplander, to whom frozen water 
is very familiar. Neither the one nor the other is capable of 
"transcending his experience," and each must abide by it. So 
with regard to iron. Other men than Mr. Fiske have seen solid 
pieces of iron float on water. An ordinary needle, if carefulty 
dropped on a smooth surface of water, so that it strikes hori- 
zontally, will remain floating on the surface. But Mr. Fiske has 
evidently never had an " experience " of this. Until he himself 
sees it, he will be unable to believe it. To him the proposi- 
tion that a solid mass of iron will always sink in water is 
one " the negation of which is inconceivable " — just as incon- 
ceivable as the proposition that two straight lines cannot in- 
close a space. 3 

. Now, if this is so, then it follows that one man's conceptions 
are just as true as another's. Whatever one experiences, or thinks 
he experiences, is true. The only kind of untruth possible would 
be that of a man who should report his own experience falsely. 
If, for example, one should say that to him all objects are of one 
color, or that the whole of an apple is no greater than a half, we 
might say that the man is telling lies, that he does not correctly 
report his own experience and belief. But, after all, even this 
cannot be made certain. What he affirms may be unintelligible 
or incredible to us ; but how do we know but that his mind 
works differently from ours ? How do we even know what he 
means ? We only hear certain sounds, which to us have a cer- 
tain meaning; but even if it is certain that those sounds are 
the product of his mind, we cannot be sure that they mean to us 
what they mean to him. Identity of experience in different men 

1 Cosmic Philosophy, vol i. p. 60. 2 Ibid,, p. 59. 

3 Ibid., pp. 59, 67. 



408 APPENDIX. 

proves nothing with respect to objective fact. It only proves a 
similarity in the different minds. It is still possible that oysters 
on the one hand, or Voltaire's Micromegas on the other, may have 
minds of such a different order from ours, that what is truth to 
us is falsehood to them. The human race, in the present stage 
of the general evolution of things, happens to have, in many 
things at least, a similar or identical mode of thinking ; but in 
the distant past or distant future an entirely different condition 
of things from that which now exists may determine mental 
action. 

Some curious results follow as regards the main purpose for 
which such books as those under consideration are written. Mr. 
Spencer and Mr. Fiske, for example, denounce various theories 
of physics and metaphysics as being incorrect. They reason as 
if they thought that these theories were really untrue. They use, 
in fact, very strong language in their condemnation of them. 
Who would think that, after all, they really hold that all 
theories are relatively true, and that none can be called abso- 
lutely true ? 

But again : These evolutionists labor hard not only to show 
what they and others do or must experience now, but more es- 
pecially to show what has been the history of things in the in- 
definite past, anterior to all intelligence. But we must ask, if 
knowledge comes simply from experience, and has to do only with 
phenomena, what right has one to make affirmations or even hy- 
potheses respecting the course of things in the inaccessible past ? 
We have been told over and over that the " thing-in-itself " is ut- 
terly unknowable, that nothing can be cognized but phenomena, 
and that phenomena are non-existent except to a cognizant mind. 
A tree, we are told, " would cease to be a tree," if we were desti- 
tute of all our senses. 1 Of course, therefore, in the geologic ages of 
the distant past, before intelligent creatures existed, there were no 
trees, nor flowers, nor water, nor rocks, nor air, nor earth. These 
phenomena are real only in a cognitive consciousness ; before the 
development of such a consciousness, accordingly, these things 
did not exist. Of course, therefore, it is absurd to undertake to 
tell about the history of these non-existent things. To argue, for 
example, that a primeval mist condensed into solid worlds, and 
that in these, or at least in one of them, various changes took 

1 Cosmic Pkilosophy, vol i. p. 81. 



THE COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. 409 

place, till at last the human race was evolved, — all this implies 
that there really was such a mist, and that there were afterwards 
various real forms of minerals, that in those distant ages there 
really were fire and water, and all the chemical substances which 
men now talk of. Large volumes are written to tell us about 
the slow processes by which these substances gradually assumed 
the shapes and qualities which the visible world now presents. 
What does all this mean ? There could have been no trees nor 
plants, we are assured, till there were animals able to see them ; 
but on the other hand there could have been no intelligent ani- 
mals till there had first been a long history of inorganic and vege- 
table objects out of which the animals were evolved ! This is no 
caricature. It is simply putting side by side two aspects of the 
philosophy under consideration. If the two are inconsistent 
with each other, that is not our fault. The only relief for the 
philosopher who presents us with this conglomerate as the final 
science of the world, is to hope for such a further process of evo- 
lution as will develop beings capable of seeing that these contra- 
dictions are no contradictions at all. 1 

But still another interesting corollary may be drawn. We 
have no knowledge, it is said, of any truth but relative truth. 
Things are true to us, or false to us, simply according as they 
agree or disagree with our experiences. We have no right, it is 
said, to affirm that any proposition is absolutely true. Now, then, 
what follows ? When it is asserted that no proposition can be 
pronounced absolutely true, is this assertion itself absolutely true, 
or only relatively true ? If it is absolutely true, then we get this 
edifying result : The proposition, that no proposition can be 
called absolutely true, is an absolutely true proposition ! This of 
course will not do. It is a worse muddle, if possible, than the 
old one about all the Cretans being liars. But what is the 
alternative ? If we cannot say that the proposition in question 
is absolutely true, then we must say that it is not absolutely true. 
But if it is not absolutely true, then it is false. There is no half- 
way place between truth and falsehood. The euphemism " rela- 
tive truthfulness " may serve to obscure the confusion of thought 
of which the author of it is guilty, but it can serve no other pur- 
pose. If it has any meaning in itself, it can be only another 
way of expressing doubt : to say that a statement is relatively 

1 Unfortunately, however, for this hope, Mr. Fiske is quite sure (in his Destiny of 
Man) that evolution has reached its acme in the human race. 



410 APPENDIX. 

true may be equivalent to saying that perhaps it is not true, after 
all. And if the doctrine of the relativity of truth is made general, 
it can mean only that nothing is certain, that no proposition 
can be known to be either true or false. Consequently the af- 
firmation that any one is in error can be only relatively true, — 
relatively, that is to say, to those who for any reason think that 
he is in error. The difference between truth and error is a 
relative difference only. Anything is true — at least relatively 
true — to one who believes it to be true. To be sure, Mr. Fiske 
tells us very positively — so positively that one might think he 
ineaDS it as absolute truth — that men often profess to believe 
what they cannot conceive. Thus he says that the scholastic 
Realists, who pretended to be able to conceive a generic horse, as 
distinct from all particular horses, did not in fact conceive of 
such a horse at all, but deluded themselves with the conceit that 
they thought what in reality was unthinkable. 1 So he says that 
those who profess to believe in a creation or annihilation of 
force do the same thing, since they attempt " the impossible task 
of establishing in thought an equation between something and 
nothing." 2 "Until men have become quite freed," he says, 
" from the inveterate habit of using words without stopping 
to render them into ideas, they may doubtless go on asserting 
propositions which conflict with experience ; but it is none the 
less true [relatively true, of course] that valid conceptions wholly 
at variance with the subjective register of experience can at no 
time be framed. And it is for this reason that we cannot frame 
a conception of nitrogen which will support combustion, or of 
a solid lump of iron which will float in water, or of a triangle 
which is round, or of a space enclosed by two straight lines." 8 
In all this he is speaking not merely for himself, but for all men. 
" So long as human intelligence has been human intelligence," he 
says, " it can never have been possible to frame in thought an 
equation between something and nothing." 4 Well, we quite as- 
sent to this proposition, and even believe it to be absolutely true, 
though of course we do not for that reason agree that this is a 
correct statement of the doctrine of creation. But the philoso- 
pher who maintains that experience is the only test of truth 
has no right to be so sweeping in his affirmations. The doctrines 
which he rejects cannot be consistently called by him erroneous ; 

1 Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i. p. 67. 2 Ibid., p. 148, cf. p. 65. 

3 Ibid., p. 67. 4 Ibid., p. 65. 



THE COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. 411 

for lie cannot know what the experience of other minds may be. 
Error and truth are both relative, according to his philosophy ; 
what is error to one may be truth to another. It being impos- 
sible to know anything about objective facts, nothing can cer- 
tainly be affirmed to be erroneous. For if it were certain that 
any opinion is erroneous, then we should have an absolute truth; 
but this is something which we are not allowed to postulate. 
Such is the hopeless absurdity into which this evolutionary doc- 
trine of the relativity of knowledge necessarily runs. 



412 APPENDIX. 



EXCUESUS III. 1 

PERSONALITY AND THE ABSOLUTE. 

T3R0BABLY there will never be a perfect agreement as to the 
-*• value of the ontological and cosmological arguments. The 
view we have expressed seems to us at least not unfair, and one 
which the general history of the discussion bears out. 2 It is note- 
worthy that the prevalent tendency of non-Christian thinking at 
the present time (as seen especially in Herbert Spencer and his 
school) is to insist on the necessity of assuming the reality of an 
Absolute Something as the ens realissimum. It is true, as we 
have shown, that this conclusion is reached at a considerable ex- 
pense of logical consistency. The Spencerian philosophy agrees 
substantially with Hume and Mill in making the causal judg- 
ment nothing but a result of the experience of invariable se- 
quence. 3 The notion of cause is, properly speaking, evacuated of 
its meaning. The necessity of thinking that every event has a 
cause is not recognized, — a necessity which is as imperative at 
the first observation of a certain sequence as at the thousandth 
repetition of it. In short, causation, in the ordinary sense of 
the word, is flatly denied. Yet causation, in precisely that ordi- 
nary sense, is assumed as an explanation of our experience of the 
phenomenal world. The only evidence of an Absolute Some- 
thing is the necessity of a cause for the experiences which we 
have. So Mr. Fiske in fact seems to conceive the matter. " Sup- 
pose now we grant," he says, 4 "for the sake of argument, that the 
only real existence is mind with its conscious modifications. The 
question at once arises, What is the cause of these modifications ? 
Since consciousness is continually changing its states, what is it 
that determines the sequence of states ? " Again : " There can 
be no changes in our consciousness unless there exist something 

1 See p. 54. 2 Cf. Dorner, Christian Doctrine, §§ 18-22. 

3 Mr. Spencer himself nowhere, so far as we know, takes up this question as a 
speculative one. There is good reason for assuming, however, that he would substan- 
tially agree with Mr. Fiske's exposition of the subject. 

4 Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 75, 76. 



PERSONALITY AND THE ABSOLUTE. 413 

which is changed, and something which causes the changes. . . . 
Abolish the noumenon, and the phenomenon is by the same act 
annihilated." x Here, as frequently elsewhere, the necessity of a 
cause is assumed, and the cause is regarded as that which " de- 
termines " the effect. And it is only from this assumed necessity 
of a determining cause that the existence of the Absolute Some- 
thing is inferred. When he discusses causation, however, more 
formally, he affirms that it is nothing but "the unconditional in- 
variable sequence of one event, or concurrence of events, upon 
another." 2 "The hypothesis of an occulta vis . . . straight- 
way lands us in an impossibility of thought. The proposition, 
that the cause constrains the effect to follow, is an unthinkable 
proposition. . . . What we do know is neither more nor less 
than what is given in consciousness, namely, that certain coexist- 
ences invariably precede or follow certain other coexistences." 3 
Now it may be that the author might make some subtle distinc- 
tion by which it would appear that there is here no contradiction. 
But to the ordinary mind it would seem to be a matter of com- 
parative indifference whether a cause is defined as that which 
" determines " an effect, or as that which " constrains an effect 
to follow." How the one should be the orthodox conception 
of cause, and the other " an unthinkable proposition," is itself 
unthinkable. 

But the salient point here is that in spite of its theoretic em- 
piricism this philosophy recognizes and even emphasizes the a 
priori conception of causality, and thence deduces the reality of 
a First Cause. In a general way, then, we may say that the Spen- 
cerian, as well as the Idealist, the Sensationalist, and the Natural 
Bealist, assumes the existence of a Something distinct from the 
conscious mind. In the definition of this Something they may 
disagree ; but all agree that there is a Reality — an ultimate 
Substance, or Force, or Energy, or Person — of which the palpa- 
ble universe of things is an effect, or outflow, or expression. In 
the Anselmic form the ontological argument can hardly have much 
weight, in so far as it gives itself out as a real argument. But it 
is certainly valid when one argues that, if there is any real exist- 
ence, there must be an ultimate, eternal, and necessary reality. 
The alternative is plain : The universe either must have begun 
to exist, or it must have existed eternally. But it could not have 

1 Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 86, 87- 2 Ibid., p. 154. 

8 Ibid., p. 155. 



414 APPENDIX. 

begun to exist without a cause outside of itself. This cause, then, 
must itself have been eternal, or in turn the effect of another 
cause ; and so on. But an infinite series is impossible, and would 
afford the mind no relief even if it were possible. We must 
assume an Ultimate Cause, a First Cause, which must be also an 
eternal, self-existent Cause. This argument, however, only amounts 
to this : that something has existed eternally, that something is ab- 
solute and self-existent. This something, so far as the argument 
goes, may however be a blind and unconscious Force. It cannot 
even be proved to be absolutely necessary to assume that this 
eternal something is in any strict sense a unit. The argument 
does not demonstrate but that a multitude of things may have 
been eternally existent, although it may easily be made probable 
that there has been some single or unifying principle underlying 
all the phenomenal world. It is, therefore, not clear how one 
can go so far as to affirm, as Professor Harris does, 1 that "in 
the knowledge of rationality we necessarily postulate absolute 
Keason." That the phenomena of rational minds suggest a Su- 
preme Being possessed of reason; that the existence of a universe 
of rational beings leads the mind to favor, or even almost irre- 
sistibly leads it to adopt, the hypothesis of a Supreme Kational 
Being, may be freely admitted and even insisted on. But all this 
falls short of saying that in the knowledge of rationality we 
necessarily postulate absolute Beason. There is no self-contradic- 
tion — nothing strictly inconceivable — in the hypothesis, that 
human reason is the product of an unreasoning force. Dr. Harris's 
proof of his proposition seems to be substantially only a mere 
repetition of it. "The possibility of concluding reasoning in an 
inference which gives knowledge rests on universal truths regula- 
tive of all thinking." This, of course, is true. But when there 
follows the statement, "The validity of these universal truths 
involves the existence of Beason unconditioned, universal, and 
supreme, the same everywhere and always," one may ask, How 
does this appear ? In geometrical reasoning certain universal 
and regulative truths are assumed. But does it necessarily follow 
that there is a Supreme Being in whom these truths are realized, 
or by whom they are constituted truths ? Would not mathemati- 
cal axioms be true even if there were no Supreme Bational Being ? 
Would it not still be true that a thing cannot at once be and not 
be ? If so, how can one conclude, with Dr. Harris, " If absolute 

1 Self-Revelation of God, p. 155. 



PERSONALITY AND THE ABSOLUTE. 415 

Eeason does not exist, no reason and no rational knowledge exist" ? 
By " absolute Eeason " is evidently meant an absolute personal 
Being endowed with reason ; otherwise the phrase would have no 
intelligible sense. 1 But the argument, however forcible as the 
analysis of an instinctive theistic impulse, can hardly be urged 
as a conclusive demonstration. Even though it be made certain 
that without the assumption of a personal God the universe and 
human history become an impenetrable mystery and a wretched 
farce, still no one can say that this cannot possibly be the correct 
description of the actual state of things. One does not like to 
think that everything has been and ever must be a farce ; but 
this dislike does not disprove absolutely the proposition that it 
is one. 

On the other hand, the agnostic doctrine that the Absolute 
Being cannot be personal is still less tenable. The Ultimate 
Substance is first defined in such a way that personality cannot 
belong to it ; and then a solemn argument is constructed to show 
that we cannot properly conceive it as personal ! " The definition 
of the Absolute," says Mr. Fiske, 2 " is that which exists out of 
all relations." In like manner Dean Mansel z says, " The Abso- 
lute, as such, is independent of all relation." Herbert Spencer 
quotes this approvingly ; and all three deduce the inference that 
the Absolute cannot be conceived, though Spencer argues, against 
Hamilton and Mansel, that the notion of the Infinite and the 
Absolute is not a pure negation. He speaks of the Absolute as 
the " Irrelative " 4 or " Non-relative." 5 He compares the anti- 
thesis with that between the correlative concepts of Whole and 
Part, Equal and Unequal, Singular and Plural, and says that, as 
there can be no idea of equality without one of inequality, so 
" the Relative is itself conceivable as such, only by opposition to 
the Irrelative or Absolute." 6 Now this is mere word-jugglery. 
It is true that, to us at least, clear knowledge implies distinction 
of one thing from another, and especially of things from their 
opposites. Some conceptions necessarily imply others. Thus 

1 This is more distinctly avowed at a later point, where the argument is more 
expanded, pp. 366 sqq. 

2 Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i. p. 9. 

3 Limits of Religious Thought, 5th ed., p. 53. On page 31 he defines it as "that 
which exists in and by itself, having no necessary relation to any other being." 

4 First Principles, 2d ed., p. 89. 

* Ibid., p. 91. 6 Ibid., p. 89. 



416 APPENDIX. 

" husband " has no meaning except as " wife " is implied. Mr. 
Spencer, however, would apparently find the true antithesis to be 
" husband " and " not-husband." Well, we can, if we choose, so 
treat every conception: "sweet" may be contrasted with the 
"not-sweet," "long" with "not-long," "cat" with "not-cat," etc. 
But this is not the way in which we come to these conceptions. 
A child learns to distinguish a cat from a dog, or from a hen, or 
from a horse ; but no one undertakes to help the infantile cog- 
nitions by contrasting the cat with the non-cat. So with the 
Relative. The natural antithesis is between the relative and the 
correlative. A parent is a parent only as related to a child ; a 
son is a son only as related to a parent. Each term is relative; 
each is related to the other ; there is an antithesis, not of contra- 
diction, but of relation. Now, when one speaks of the Relative in 
the abstract, he is speaking of what has no substantial existence ; 
and it is mere word-play to set it over against a Non-relative that 
has as little substantial existence. 1 If one speaks of a particular 
thing, as, say, of the Mediterranean, one may describe it by setting 
forth its relations, — its length and breadth, as related to a con- 
ventional standard of measurement; its constitution, as related 
to other material substances ; its position, as related to continents 
and oceans, etc. Any one concept is thus defined by a multitude 
of relations. But if any one should define the Mediterranean as 
the Relative, or a Relative, to be conceived and defined as con- 
trasted with the Absolute, we should have doubts of his sanity. 
Now, what we know of relations has to do with these mutual rela- 
tions, — correlations. In a general way, it may be said that every 
individual object is related to every other more or less intimately. 
The cosmos is a network of correlated things. But by what 
right do we lump all these things together and dub them " the 
Relative " ? There is no ground for doing so, and no meaning in 
it, unless we know of some object which is to be distinguished 
from the totality of the cosmos, and which yet sustains a relation 
to it. But if there is such an object ; if for this purpose the 

1 A little child once asked his mother, " Does God know everything ? " " Yes, 
certainly," she replied. " No," was the retort, " there is one thing he does not know ; 
he does not know what ' gookie ' means." This " gookie," which the child had invented 
as meaning nothing, may not inaptly he likened to the philosophers' Relative, heing about 
equally shadowy and unmeaning ; and the setting of the Relative and the Non-relative 
over against each other, with the philosophical subtleties that are connected with the 
process, is about as instructive as it would be to discourse about the "gookie" and the 
"non-gookie." 



PERSONALITY AND THE ABSOLUTE. 417 

cosmos may be conceived as a unit, and the other object as another 
unit, — then the two objects are related to each other; they are 
correlatives. If, for example, the universe of animate and inan- 
imate things is as a whole conceived to have been created by a 
Divine Being, then this Being and the Universe are related to 
each other as Creator and Creation. Mr. Spencer himself cannot 
avoid implying this. He speaks repeatedly of the " relation " 
between the Relative and the Non-relative. 1 Now, if one chooses 
to call the world as a whole the Relative, he can do so ; albeit the 
expression conveys no clear sense. Also, if he chooses, he can 
conceive the world as distinguished from and related to the Deity, 
and can call the Deity the Absolute. But if, after thus naming 
these correlative objects, he adds that the proper definition of the 
Absolute is that which is independent of all relations, and goes 
on to entangle himself in metaphysical snarls growing out of this 
gratuitous self-contradiction, it is difficult to have patience with 
the process, or to have much respect for the logical acumen of the 
reasoner. 

Yet this is precisely what these writers do. The existence of 
the Absolute is inferred from the essential relativity of human 
knowledge. " There can be no impressions unless there exist a 
something which is impressed and a something which impresses. 
. . . Abolish the noumenon, and the phenomenon is by the same 
act annihilated." Consequently, it is said, we must postulate a 
First Cause. But such a cause " can have no necessary relation 
to any other form of being ; " for if it had, it would be partially 
dependent upon that other form of being, and would not be the 
First Cause. Consequently the First Cause must be complete in 
itself, independent of all relations ; that is, it must be absolute. 2 
And so the result is that, since the phenomenal world cannot be 
conceived except as related to a cause (which cause must then of 
course be related to the world), this cause must be one that has no 
relations, and consequently cannot be the cause of the world! It 
needs but a small modicum of clear thought to enable one to say : 
If (as is affirmed) the Relative and the Absolute imply one an- 
other, that is, are correlatives, then both the Relative and the Abso- 
lute are relatives; consequently, to define the Absolute as the 
Non-relative is a simple piece of stupidity and superfluous self- 
contradiction. 

1 First Principles, vol. i. p. 91. 

2 This is given almost verbatim from Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 8, 9, 87. 

27 



418 APPENDIX. 

So with regard to the conception of the Infinite. No doubt 
there are difficulties in framing this conception. From the time 
when Zeno proved the impossibility of motion, down to the time 
when Kant and Hamilton set forth their antinomies, the specu- 
lative mind has amused or vexed itself with metaphysical puzzles 
growing out of the conceptions of the infinite and the infinitesi- 
mal. 1 If the Infinite is conceived as the sum total of reality — 
as the All — then there is no Finite that can be contrasted with 
it, unless we conceive of the Infinite as a whole, made up of finite 
parts. But such an Infinite would not be truly infinite, unless we 
assume the finite parts to be infinite in number ; and even then 
the conception is not pure. The parts may be conceived as smaller 
or larger. Would an infinite number of large parts make a 
larger Infinite than an infinite number of small ones? Now, when 
one simply defines God as the Infinite, and (consciously or un- 
consciously) cherishes this quantitative conception of infinity, 
and yet desires to distinguish the material universe and the 
human race from God, he can involve himself in inextricable 
tangles. But why, in the name of common sense, should one 
manufacture a maze to get lost in ? What is the necessity for 
attaching to the Deity this mathematical notion of quantitative 
boundlessness ? If he is thought of as Spirit, such a physical 
conception of him is incongruous. If the term Infinite is applied 
to him at all, it must be so defined as to be consistent with what 
is really thought about him. He cannot be thought of as occupy- 
ing infinite space ; and as to infinite duration, whatever difficulty 
may inhere in the conception, it is no greater as related to God 
than as related to any single atom, or the universe of atoms, 

1 The puzzles are real ; and it is not a full solution to argue, with Spencer and many- 
other critics of the Hamiltonian doctrine, that we have a positive though inadequate, 
as distinguished from a negative, conception of the Infinite. All men can have only 
an inadequate notion of the distance between the earth and Sirius ; but it can be ex- 
pressed in figures which have a definite relation to distances of which we do have a very 
positive conception. But when it is said that 100 forms no larger proportion of an 
infinite number than 10 does, we are introduced into an altogether different order of 
relations. "We can after a sort conceive of half the distance to Sirius ; but when it is 
said that an infinite distance is not divisible into parts, while we may still retain the 
positive conception of distance, the infinity, qua infinity, is certainly not positively 
conceived. But this does not imply that we may not have a positive notion of some- 
thing of which infinity is predicated. We have a positive notion of space ; and when 
we say that space is infinite, we still retain the positive notion of space, though we do 
not have a positive conception of the infinity. 



PERSONALITY AND THE ABSOLUTE. 419 

provided they are conceived as eternal. When infinity is predi- 
cated of his knowledge or his power, it can properly mean no 
more than that he can know all that there is to know, and do all 
that can be done consistently with his other attributes and with 
the nature of things. 

TVhen, now, we are loftily told that personality is utterly incon- 
sistent with infinity and absoluteness, we can receive the dictum 
with great equanimity. Personality, it is said, involves limitation. 
Consciousness, we are reminded, is formed of successive states, 
whereas such a succession is irreconcilable with the unchange- 
ableness and omniscience ascribed to the Deity. Volition in like 
manner is declared to be quite inconceivable in an infinite being. 
"The willing of each end excludes from consciousness for an 
interval the willing of other ends, and therefore is inconsistent 
with that omnipresent activity which simultaneously works out 
an infinity of ends." Likewise, inasmuch as intelligence, as 
alone conceivable by us, presupposes existences independent of it 
and objective to it, "to speak of an intelligence which exists 
in the absence of all such alien activities is to use a meaningless 
word." The conclusion, then, is that our conception of the First 
Cause is not pure, till it has sloughed off all these anthropomor- 
phic limitations, and " becomes a consciousness which transcends 
the forms of distinct thought, though it forever remains a 
consciousness." * 

After having established this point, Mr. Spencer proceeds to 
meet an objection naturally raised against his ghost theory of the 
origin of religious conceptions. Since the savage's notion of 
"the material double of a dead man" is baseless, how, it is asked, 
can a purification of this conception lead to anything better 
founded ? " If the primitive belief was absolutely false, all de- 
rived beliefs must be absolutely false." To this it is replied that 
there is, after all, a germ of truth in the primitive conception, "the 
truth, namely, that the power which manifests itself in conscious- 
ness is but a differently conditioned form of the power which 
manifests itself beyond consciousness." That is, it is explained, 
every voluntary act yields to the primitive man proof of a source 
of energy within him. His "'sense of effort, being the perceived 
antecedent of changes produced by him, becomes the conceived 
antecedent of changes not produced by him." He conceives the 

1 H. Spencer, Ecclesiastical Institutions, 2d ed., pp. 835-837 (Part VI. of Prin- 
ciples of Sociology). — 



420 APPENDIX. 

" doubles of the dead " to be the workers of " all but the most 
familiar changes." In course of time the idea of force "comes 
to be less and less associated with the idea of a human ghost," 
and " the dissociation reaches its extreme in the thoughts of the 
man of science who interprets in terms of force not only the 
visible changes of sensible bodies, but all physical changes what- 
ever." Nevertheless even the scientist " is compelled to symbolize 
objective force in terms of subjective force from lack of any other 
symbol." And so, "the final outcome of that speculation com- 
menced by the primitive man, is that the Power manifested through- 
out the Universe distinguished as material is the same Power 
which in ourselves wells up under the form of consciousness." 1 

It is difficult not to think that Mr. Spencer feels the force of 
the objection more keenly than he confesses. If not, his compo- 
sure is not creditable to his perspicacity. Observe the position : 
Personality, as implying self-consciousness, volition, and intelli- 
gence, is declared to be quite inconceivable in the Absolute Being. 
The process of "deanthropomorphization" (to use Mr. Fiske's 
term) has gone so far as to abolish all the characteristics of per- 
sonality from the First Cause and leave it nothing but pure Force 
or Energy as its essential feature. "The last stage reached is 
recognition of the truth that force as it exists beyond conscious- 
ness cannot be like what we know as force within consciousness ; 
and that yet, as either is capable of generating the other, they 
must be different modes of the same." 2 Here are several strange 
things: (1) Two forms of force are declared to be "different 
modes of the same," and yet not "like." Just before we are told 
that the internal energy of which external changes are the conse- 
quents "is the same energy which, freed from anthropomorphic 
accompaniments, is now figured as the cause of all external phe- 
nomena." The same energy, and yet not like ! But (2) this same- 
ness is inferred from the fact that the two forms are capable 
of generating each other. The conscious person generates force. 
Good ; let this be granted. And the conscious person is led by 
the principle of causality to infer a power outside of him as the 
cause of his conscious personality. Good again ; but how does it 
appear that the two forces are necessarily the same ? All that 
consciousness testifies to is at best only that there is causation in 
the two cases. But if they are the same because both are the 

1 Ecclesiastical Institutions, 2d ed., pp. 837-839. 

2 Ibid., p. 839. 



PERSONALITY AND THE ABSOLUTE. 421 

result of energy, why not conclude that both kinds are conscious 
energy rather than that one is conscious and the other uncon- 
scious ? All that we are directly conscious of is the exercise of 
force in ourselves. If this is the primitive source of our notion 
of power, then how does it come to be so defecated as to lose the 
one characteristic (volition) which originally marked it 1 But 
our perplexity is increased, when we compare all this with what 
Mr. Spencer elsewhere x says. Speaking of the First Cause, he 
says, " Can it be like in kind to anything of which we have sen- 
sible experience? Obviously not. Between the creating and the 
created there must be a distinction transcending any of the 
distinctions existing between different divisions of the created. 
That which is uncaused cannot be assimilated to that which is 
caused, the two being, in the very naming, antithetically opposed. 
... It is impossible to put the Absolute in the same category with 
anything relative." But now we are assured that the two kinds 
of force generate each other ; each is both creator and created ; 
instead of arguing that the creating and the created must as such 
be utterly unlike, he assumes them for that very reason to be 
only different modes of the same power ! (3) Another difficulty 
appears when we ask why the distinction between the Absolute 
and the Relative is so fatal to personality in the Absolute, but is 
not also fatal to power in the Absolute. Consciousness, will, etc. 
in finite man, we are told, are known only as concerned with suc- 
cession, with correlated existences, etc. Therefore, it is said, 
these attributes of personality cannot belong to the Absolute, 
since they would annul the absoluteness. Well, then, what about 
the power of which the finite person is conscious? Does not 
every exertion of power imply an objective something on which 
it is exerted? Does it not imply succession in time? Each exer- 
tion can be conceived as real, only as distinguished from others. 
Finiteness and relativity belong to the exertion of power as much 
as to the phenomena of consciousness. How then can there be an 
Absolute Power, but not an Absolute Person? Every metaphys- 
ical difficulty which may be brought against the one may be 
equally well brought against the other ; and the upshot, if one 
allows himself to be frightened by the bugbear of the Absolute at 
all, is that it must be pronounced to be without any definable 
character whatever. It can only be called Something, unless the 

1 First Principles, 2d ed., p. 81. 



422 APPENDIX. 

Hegelian designation, Nothing, may be thought preferable. Mr. 
Spencer, to be sure, resents the imputation that in making the 
Absolute unknowable he makes it a mere negation, and takes 
offense at Mr. Harrison for calling his Absolute the " All-nothing- 
ness." 1 But he does not satisfactorily meet the charge that his 
doctrine of the Absolute is self-contradictory. He has no right to 
call it unknowable, if he knows it to be a power at all. But ac- 
cording to his premises respecting the absolute, he has no right to 
predicate power or any other conceivable attribute to it. 

We can, therefore, afford to listen with great composure to 
these oracular utterances respecting the impossibility of predicat- 
ing personality of the Absolute. Even though we may concede 
that for us conscious personality involves a constant succession 
and change of conscious states, 2 we are not therefore obliged to 
assume that there can be no form of consciousness, in which 
there is no such change and succession. But even if it could be 
proved that consciousness necessarily implies change and suc- 
cession, what shall the theist say ? Why, simply that God, 
then, is not unchangeable in any such sense as to exclude con- 
sciousness. If any scholastic notions of the divine attributes 
lead to a doctrine of God which involves such a limitation of 
him, there is no law of the Medes and Persians which prohibits 
us from abandoning such a self-fettering method of conceiving 
the Deity. 3 Absolute and rigid changelessness is neither a more 
precious, nor a more necessary, element in our conception of the 
Deity than conscious personality. Least of all need we to be 
frightened from the current notion of the divine Personality by a 
philosopher who tries to frighten us from it by a process of 
argumentation which swarms with self-contradictions. 

1 Nineteenth Century, 1884, p. 502. 

2 As argued by Mr. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, chap. xxvi. et passim. 

8 Cf. the New TZnglander, 1875, my article on the Metaphysical Idea of Eternity. 



THE PRIMEVAL REVELATION. 423 



EXCURSUS IV. 1 

LELAND AND WATSON ON THE PRIMEVAL REVELATION. 

PROFESSOR FLINT {Theism, ed. 5, note iv, p. 338) quotes 
and endorses Dr. Fairbairn on this point. He makes the 
additional argument, that the theory of primeval revelation is in- 
consistent with the Protestant rejection of tradition, besides be- 
ing " wholly untenable in the light of modern science." He 
does not explain how either of these considerations conflicts with 
the theory. Such an explanation is especially needed, inasmuch 
as he has immediately before (p. 21) distinctly emphasized that 
" we owe our theism in great part to our Christianity, — that 
natural religion has had no real existence prior to or apart from 
what has claimed to be revealed religion." His view, then, ap- 
parently is the very defensible one, that religion is both natural 
and revealed, that man has a natural tendency to believe in a 
God, and that God also has from the beginning specially revealed 
himself, thus confirming the natural tendency. It is not obvious 
what especially new light has been thrown on this problem by 
the wider study of ethnography which, Dr. Flint intimates, has 
overthrown the theory of a primitive revelation as a source of 
religious belief. Whatever difficulties may be found in the mul- 
tiplicity and diversity of human religions, these do not disprove 
the theory of a primitive revelation which may have become 
corrupted or obscured. Professor Flint refers with approval to 
Professor Cocker's discussion of this question in his Christianity 
and Greek Philosophy. Cocker holds that " the universal phe- 
nomenon of religion has originated in the a priori apperceptions 
of reason and the natural instinctive feelings of the heart, which 
from age to age have been vitalized, unfolded, and perfected by 
supernatural communications and testamentary revelations" (p. 
97). He refers (p. 86) with condemnation to Leland, Watson, 
and others as holding that " all our religious knowledge is de- 
rived from oral revelation alone." The difference between the 
two views is, however, too much emphasized. Thus Leland (Ad- 

1 See p. 69. 



42-1 APPENDIX. 

vantage and Necessity of the Christian Revelation, cliap. i. p. 35) 
starts with the proposition that " man is a religious creature." 
He says (p. 36) that "men have faculties capable of contem- 
plating the great Author of their being, and (pp. 38, 39) that God 
"originally formed and designed him for religion. ... He put 
him at his first creation into an immediate capacity of answering 
this end of his being and entering on a life of religion." He then 
adds that we must suppose, either that God left man to himself 
" to acquire the knowledge of religion and his duty by the mere 
force of his own unassisted reason and experience, or . . . that 
the wise Author of his being, at his first creation, communicated 
to him such a knowledge of religion as enabled him immediately 
to know his Maker and the duty required of him." The argu- 
ment is that it is not probable that God would leave the first 
man without adequate religious knowledge. And to the sug- 
gestion that man " by the force of his own reason might soon 
acquire a sufficient knowledge of God and of his duty, and con- 
sequently of true religion," he replies that, "though the main 
principles of all religion, . . . when clearly propounded to the 
human mind, . . . are perfectly agreeable to the most improved 
reason and understanding of man, yet it can hardly be supposed 
that the first man or men, if left to themselves without any in- 
struction or information, would have been able to have formed in 
a short time a right scheme of religion for themselves founded 
upon those principles. It would probably have been a long time 
before he raised his thoughts to things spiritual and invisible, and 
attained to such a knowledge and contemplation of the work of 
nature as to have inferred from thence the necessary existence of 
the one only true God and his infinite perfections " (p. 40). It is 
here clearly implied that man, as originally created, not only had 
the capacity for understanding a revelation, but also had faculties 
by which he might in course of time have come to a knowledge 
of God and duty. There is in reality only the slightest difference 
between Leland and Cocker. The latter emphasizes that religion 
must have originated in the apperceptions of reason, that a revela- 
tion could not have been apprehended or believed without a pre- 
vious belief in the reality of God. Leland urges that God could 
not have left man to himself, and must therefore at the very out- 
set have made himself more particularly known. The one lays 
stress on the one side, the other on the other ; but both admit 
both ; and they are substantially at one. 



THE PRIMEVAL REVELATION. 425 

The case is nearly the same with Watson. He concludes in- 
deed {Theological Institutes, vol. i. p. 303) that " we owe the knowl- 
edge of the existence of God and of his attributes to revelation 
alone." But he not only follows this statement with the other, 
that these being now discovered, " the rational evidence of both is 
convincing and irresistible," but he also says, when first arguing 
for the necessity of a revelation : u The whole of this argument is 
designed to prove that, had we been left, for the regulation of our 
conduct, to infer the will and purposes of the Supreme Being 
from his natural works and his administration of the affairs of 
the world, our knowledge of both would have been essentially defi- 
cient ; and it establishes a strong presumption in favor of a direct 
revelation from God to his creatures, that neither his will, con- 
cerning us nor the hope of forgiveness might be left to dark and 
uncertain inference, but be the subject of an express declaration" 
(p. 12). Here again it is plainly implied that, left to himself, 
man might have inferred, by the use of his natural faculties, the 
existence and the will of God ; it is, however, argued that this 
inference would have been uncertain, and would have fallen short 
of positive knowledge. Watson does not deny, but asserts, that 
one's natural constitution predisposes him to inquire concerning 
God and his will. He only insists that man's full knowledge of 
God comes from revelation, whereas without the revelation men 
would have been able, at the best, only to infer and conjecture 
the existence and character of a Divine Being. 



426 APPENDIX. 



EXCUKSUS V. 1 

THE CEKTAINTIES OF THE AGNOSTIC. 

/ ~PHE demand which is made by the author of Supernatural 
■*- Religion, that, before any testimony for the occurrence of a 
miracle can even be listened to, the existence of a personal God 
must first be demonstratively established, provokes one to a 
retort the validity of which, on the ground assumed by him, ought 
not to be questioned. The argument against miracles rests upon 
the assumption that certain laws of nature are incontestably as- 
certained to be facts. But suppose one should question the cer- 
tainty of this assumption. The very existence of a material 
world has been plausibly denied by many philosophers; and 
many others, if not the most, admit that the existence of such 
a world is a mere inference from certain mental phenomena. 
And even if one adopts the common-sense doctrine of the direct 
perception of matter, yet he is soon nonplussed by the allegation 
that what seems to be directly perceived is only seemingly per- 
ceived, — that matter is made up of invisible atoms probably; 
or, if not of atoms, of forces which answer the same purpose ; 
and that atoms, in order to unite in the formation of concrete 
objects, must further be assumed to be supplemented by ether, 
which is also invisible and still more hypothetical than the 
atoms. Matter, therefore, being something inferred, but never 
perceived, of course all propositions concerning the laws of matter 
must be equally hypothetical, or even more so ; for our notion of 
laws depends on induction ; the laws must come as a secondary 
inference. The fact of matter must be more certain than the 
special qualities of it. Consequently the laws of matter must 
be more hypothetical than the fact of matter ; there is an un- 
certainty of the second degree. But this overthrows the whole 
argument against the reality of miracles. The argument rests on 
the assumption that the laws of nature are known and are ab- 
solutely uniform ; but if the very existence of the natural world 
is philosophically dubious, if it is problematical whether matter 
itself is a reality, of course no solid conclusion can be founded 
on the supposed inviolability of the laivs of matter. It is true, 

l See p. 100. 



THE CERTAINTIES OF THE AGNOSTIC. 427 

this skeptical conclusion invalidates the argument for miracles 
as much as the one against them ; it brings us to the point at 
which all argument and all belief are annulled. But it shows 
that the boasted argument against the credibility of miracles is 
a gun which is as destructive at the breech as at the muzzle. He 
who in so lordly a manner treats theism as a mere hypothesis 
not deserving any consideration, unless it can be established by 
a mathematical demonstration, may well be required to consider 
how deficient his own argument is in the rigid conclusiveness 
which he demands of others. 1 

The author's faith in natural law is so great that he sees no 
need of any special interference on the part of God, even if there 
be a God. After giving a representation, not to say caricature, 
of the Christian doctrine of the creation, the fall, and redemp- 
tion, he remarks that the theory of a depravation, and the con- 
sequent need of a redemption, of man is entirely disproved by 
" the constitution of nature," which, he says, " bears everywhere 
the record of systematic upward progression." The Christian 
theory, he goes on to say, "is contradicted by the whole opera- 
tion of natural laws, which contain in themselves inexorable 
penalties against retrogression " (p. 49) ; and he then fortifies 
this statement by a quotation from Herbert Spencer (Social 
Statics, p. 64), who gives a demonstration of this proposition, 
and invites any one who demurs to it to point out the error. 
The argument is in brief that, all imperfection being " unfitness 
to the conditions of existence," and this unfitness consisting in 
a deficiency or excess of faculties, both the deficiency and the 

1 An interesting instance of the adventurousness of scientists with respect to things 
unknown is found in an author ( Philipp Spiller, Die Entstehung der Welt, 1870, and 
other works), who makes ether the primeval source of all heing and development (p. 508 
et passim). Yet the very existence of any such ether is an unproved hypothesis; the 
conception is one which it is impossible to carry out without self-contradiction. The 
existence of ether is assumed in order to account for effects apparently produced by one 
body on another at a distance from it (action at a distance being assumed to be impos- 
sible); but the ether itself being conceived to be extraordinarily rarefied, its particles 
must (in proportion to their size) be at a considerable distance from one another; and 
so we have, after all, action at a distance ; and even if we assume a still finer and more 
gaseous substance to fill up the still empty space between the several ether particles, and 
so ad infinitum, we still do not get away from the assumption of action at a distance. 
Yet the pressure and movements of this ether are made by Spiller to explain gravitation, 
electricity, life, and everything else. This is called science — sure knowledge. Herbert 
Spencer forcibly states the metaphysical difficulty involved in the hypothesis of an ether 
[First Principles, § 18). 



428 APPENDIX. 

excess will in time be removed by the very fact that the circum- 
stances of life always tend to exercise and strengthen those 
faculties which are most needed, and to weaken those not needed. 
Consequently " all excess and all deficiency must disappear ; that 
is, all unfitness must disappear; that is, all imperfection must 
disappear." One might be the more tempted to have confidence 
in Mr. Spencer's logical substitute for Eedemption, if he himself 
had not furnished the refutation which he triumphantly chal- 
lenges the world to produce. In chap, xxiii of his First Principles, 
he demonstrates with equal cogency that it is the law of things, 
after evolution has reached a certain point, that a process of 
dissolution shall take place, — a dissolution which does not even 
wait for absolute perfection to be reached before it begins, but 
takes place when an "equilibrium*' has been reached (p. 519), 
whatever that may mean. This social and national dissolution, 
he says, often takes place ; such dissolutions may be occasioned 
by " plague or famine at home, or a revolution abroad w (p. 520) ; 
this is a sort of premature dissolution ; but dissolution must at 
any rate begin " where a society has developed into the highest 
form permitted by the characters of its units " (p. 521). Ulti- 
mately, he concludes, the whole solar system will be dissolved 
into the primeval nebulosity, and then begin again a new process 
of evolution, and so on ad infinitum (pp. 527-537). 

Now, Mr. Spencer can hardly mean to say that the nations which 
have undergone the process of dissolution had previously reached 
the stage of absolute perfection ; and the question arises, What 
in this case becomes of this law of his, according to which all 
imperfection must ultimately disappear ? The puzzle is increased 
by the very illustration which Mr. Spencer uses in the argument 
itself which is said to demonstrate that evolution necessarily leads 
to perfection. He says, we infer that all men will certainly die, 
because all men have died, and that with the same certainty we 
must infer that organs and capacities grow by use and diminish 
by disuse, simply because all observation shows that they have 
thus grown and diminished in the past. But this example of 
death is a wondrously unhappy illustration to make use of ; for 
what is death but the culmination of a weakening process which 
the organs undergo in spite of exercise ? This is enough to say 
in reply to the wonderful argument. It might indeed be urged 
that the whole of it is vitiated by an utter ignoring of the facts 
of the moral and spiritual world. 



BEYSCHLAG OX MIRACLES. 429 



EXCUESUS VI. 1 

Beyschlag ox the Miracle of the Loaves. 

TF Bothe were now living, he would find occasion still to be sur- 
prised at the efforts of believing critics to explain miracles 
and make them intelligible. Among these efforts may be men- 
tioned the treatment of the question of miracles by Beyschlag in 
his Leben Jesu (1885, vol. i. pp. 34 sqq.). He says that nature is 
in a state of disorder caused by sin, as Paul represents it (Eom. 
viii.), and that the supernatural may be regarded as a restoration 
of the truly natural. He then asks: "What if this were the 
law of the Biblical miracles, that the Spirit of God, who fills the 
bearers of revelation, releases in them (especially in certain 
moments of their official life) those slumbering higher natural 
forces, in order, in individual, and as it were prophetical, cases, 
to produce that abolition of evil [of which Paul speaks] and the 
restoration of ideal naturalness ? " This view he enforces by 
the consideration that the best attested miracles are those of 
healing, which is simply a restoration of the normal and natural 
conditions. 

It is not clear what is meant here by the suggestion concerning 
"slumbering forces." Evidently it is not what would be under- 
stood by such a phrase in common life. The divine act of " re- 
leasing" the slumbering forces in the cases of the Biblical miracles 
is clearly not analogous, say, to that conjunction of natural agencies 
by which electricity is discharged, and what is ordinarily unper- 
ceived and appears to be inactive becomes a most effective and 
terrific agent. Beyschlag in his definition of miracles (p. 30) 
likens God's miraculous intervention to the act of a man whose 
will modifies, though it does not violate, the forces of nature. 
Very well ; but human agency can make use only of the known 
and ordinary forces ; it is no part of man's province to awaken 
slumbering (that is, unknown) forces. The hypothesis of such 
forces is manifestly resorted to in order to explain the rare and 
exceptional character of miraculous events. It is another way 
of saying that God intervenes at certain periods, and produces 

l Seep. 111. 



430 APPENDIX. 

startling effects which, the ordinary forces of nature could not 
have produced. We must object, however, to this theory of 
"slumbering forces," in the first place, that the conception is 
vague and fanciful. What is a slumbering force ? Natural 
science certainly knows nothing of natural forces which in any 
proper sense can be called slumbering. Beyschlag's notion 
appears to be that these forces are occult and unknown to natural 
science. But if so, what right has one to postulate them ? Where 
is the evidence that there are such forces ? The assumption that 
they exist is, moreover, not only purely imaginary, but entirely 
gratuitous and useless, unless it is assumed that God cannot act 
except through natural forces. These slumbering forces are 
evidently conceived to be natural forces. But we now meet with a 
second and still more serious objection to this hypothesis, namely, 
that it is self-destructive. For if God cannot act on the world 
except through natural forces, then he cannot act by way of 
releasing the slumbering forces except through other natural 
forces. This act of releasing, then, according to the hypothesis, 
must be either simply a regular normal action of natural forces — 
in which case of course the result of it (the release) must be 
normal and regular, and therefore no miracle ; or else the act of 
releasing must be an irregular, abnormal action of the natural 
forces — in which case the cause of the irregularity must be 
looked for in an immediate direct exercise of divine power. But 
if God may act directly (that is, without the use of a natural force) 
in releasing the slumbering force, why not just as well act directly 
in producing a miraculous effect without the use of the slumber- 
ing force ? There is no escape, after all, from the hypothesis of 
a direct divine intervention, unless (what no one would dream of 
doing) we resort to the absurd supposition of an infinite series in 
the business of releasing slumbering forces. There is, in short, 
no middle ground between the theory that there are no miracles 
in the proper sense, and the theory that God acts directly, in the 
exercise of supernatural power, for the production of miraculous 
effects. 

The practical application of this hypothesis is, in case of the 
more striking miracles, the explaining away of the miraculous 
element altogether. Beyschlag's elucidation of the miracle of the 
loaves is an instructive illustration of this remark. He can do 
no better than to dress up Paulus's explanation {Leben Jesu, vol. i. 
pp. 349 sqq.). He differs from Paulus in admitting that the 



BEYSCHLAG ON MIRACLES. 431 

narrative, as it stands, implies that the narrators regarded the 
loaves as miraculously multiplied. But the substance of the 
explanation is the same. It makes the miracle to be a miracle 
of faith on Jesus' part, the outward act consisting in nothing else 
than in his inducing those who had secretly brought provisions 
to allow their supplies to be distributed for the general benefit ! 
(vol. ii. p. 254 sqq.) Yet he would still call the event a miracle. 
" We do not see," he says, "why the glory of God and the glory of 
Christ would in this case be less than if it had continually sup- 
plied loaves and fishes out of itself" (vol. i. p. 311). He refers 
to Weiss as substantially agreeing with him. The latter (Life 
of Christ, vol. ii. pp. 385 sq.) does favor a similar explanation, 
though he does not conceive the food as concealed. He represents 
the miracle as one of "divine providence." Jesus exercised, as 
it were, a miracle of faith in being assured that the needed supply 
would come somehow. But he says that this theory is a hypothe- 
sis to which no one is committed. " Simple faith," he adds, " is 
not interdicted from keeping to the idea of a creative miracle." 
In Beyschlag's case this attempt to explain the miracle is part and 
parcel of a systematic explaining away of the supernatural in in- 
stances where a direct exertion of supernatural power on irrational 
nature seems to be affirmed. Christ's stilling the waves, walking 
on the water, turning water into wine, etc. are called " unnatural," 
as these events are reported to us, and are consequently all ex- 
plained away. The real truth he assumes to be that, in some 
cases, as, for example, the walking on the water, the disciples were 
mistaken in regard to the fact, and that Jesus, not knowing of 
their error, had no occasion to correct it. But a more sober criti- 
cism will be likely to find these explanations more " unnatural " 
than the miracles themselves would have been. Beyschlag (vol. 
i. p. 310) says : " It is a contra-natural notion that the baked 
loaves and the roasted fishes should have grown under his hands. 
That is not the manner in which God helps or creates. When he 
vouchsafes to an August Hermann Francke to found an orphan- 
house with five dollars, he does it by causing the remainder of the 
money to be contributed to the man who in courageous faith has 
engaged in the enterprise. Why should we not conceive Jesus' 
act of faith and love in the wilderness as crowned with success 
in the same way ? " The obvious answer to this question is : 
Because the narrative gives no hint of any such explanation of 
the event. The narrative distinctly tells us that there were only 



432 APPENDIX. 

five loaves and two fishes with which to supply the multitude. 
The critics imagine that in the crowd there is enough, and more 
than enough, to satisfy the whole five thousand. The narrative 
tells us that Jesus took these five loaves and two fishes and gave 
them to the multitude. The critics imagine that he somehow 
learned about other supplies, and got hold of them and really gave 
these to the multitude. The narrative tells us that when the 
people saw this " sign " they called Jesus a prophet and wanted 
even to make him a king (John vi. 14, 15). The critics tell us 
that there was no " sign " at all, and that the transaction could 
have been so regarded only through a delusion. But even if this 
were so, still the apostles must have known where the supply 
really came from, and the puzzle is to explain how the event could 
have been called a miracle by the Evangelists. Beyschlag seems 
to trace the origin of the notion to the enthusiasm of the people 
who had been fed, and who imagined that the supply had been 
miraculously furnished. But this delusion could not have been 
transfused into the minds of the more immediate disciples ; and 
it is still unexplained how in the Fourth Gospel (whose genuine- 
ness Beyschlag defends) the occurrence could have been so un- 
equivocally described as a miracle. Beyschlag endeavors to find 
in the Gospels themselves positive intimations that his theory is 
correct. He quotes Mark vi. 52, where it is said that the dis- 
ciples " understood not concerning the loaves, but their heart 
was hardened," as evidence that they did not originally take 
the occurrence as miraculous. Mark writes this, he says, from 
the standpoint of one who did regard the event as miraculous. 
But then the question arises, How did the disciples ever come 
to regard this occurrence as miraculous, if it did not make this 
impression at the outset? Beyschlag gives as the reason that 
they had witnessed miracle upon miracle wrought by Jesus, so 
that their faith in his miraculous power was unbounded. Very 
well ; then the most natural thing was that they should regard 
the occurrence as miraculous at the outset, as the Evangelists all 
evidently imply. To say that Mark in one breath narrates what 
he conceives to have been a palpable miracle, and in the next 
affirms that the disciples did not understand it to be one, is to 
make him guilty of the strangest confusion. Mark makes the 
statement in question as an explanation of the disciples' surprise 
at seeing Jesus walking on the water. That is, he means to 
intimate that, although they had just witnessed a great miracle, 



BEYSCHLAG ON MIRACLES. 433 

they were not prepared to witness another. Inasmuch, as Bey- 
schlag regards both accounts as legendary, it requires the faith 
of a critic to detect in this observation of the Evangelist the one 
truthful statement which unlocks the mystery of the whole af- 
fair, and reveals (what there is not the faintest hint of) that there 
was food enough " concealed " by the multitude, notwithstanding 
that Mark himself (in the narrative of the second miraculous 
feeding) makes Jesus say expressly (viii. 2) of the multitude 
that " they have nothing to eat." 

All this straining and discrediting of the narrative in order to 
avoid the assumption of a miracle — and that on the part of one 
who strenuously defends the reality of miracles in general ! It is 
a wonder, however, if the fear of believing in something " magi- 
cal " must drive one to some method of explaining the miracle 
away, that our author should not have adopted an explanation 
similar to the one by which he solves the problem of the miracle 
at Cana. The hypothesis that by a sort of mesmeric influence 
the water was made to taste like wine involves only two difficulties, 
neither of which appears to be any stumbling-block to Beyschlag, 
namely, that the narrator evidently conceived it otherwise, and 
that Jesus is virtually accused of practising deception. Other- 
wise everything is very simple. Now, instead of such large 
draughts on the imagination in regard to the supply of food, why 
not suppose that Jesus exerted his mesmeric power here with re- 
gard to food as in the other case he did with regard to drink? 
Why not suppose that he ordered grass to be plucked and passed 
around to the multitude, and by his mesmeric power made it taste 
like bread and fish ? Is there not a hint of this in the express 
statement made, that there was "much grass" in the place V. 



28 



434 APPENDIX. 



EXCURSUS VII. 1 

RITSCHL ON MIRACLES. 

"D ITSCHL'S doctrine of miracles is further expounded in the 
Jahrbucher fur deutsche Theologie, 1861, where he propounds 
the following definition : " The religious conception of a miracle 
is, in its most general sense, nothing else than that of an experi- 
ence of God's special providence" (p. 442). Again (Ibid.), "In 
this sense to declare miracles impossible is as much as to say 
that positive religion is an illusion. ... In this sense the reli- 
gious man is continually and necessarily experiencing miracles, 
and does not need merely to believe in miracles which others 
have seen." Furthermore, he says that the early Christians had 
"no conception of natural laws," and that therefore "historical 
investigation is utterly unable to make out from the narratives 
before us what took place objectively" (p. 440). And in Sybel's 
Historische Zeitschrift (1862, p. 97) he says, " Most certainly natural 
events which contradict natural laws are for us scientifically in- 
conceivable," and adds (p. 98), " Since now both Jesus and Paul 
are not conscious of working in opposition to the laws of nature, 
it follows that confidence in the truth of their consciousness has 
nothing to do with the principle that, because a contradiction of 
the laws of nature is inconceivable, miracles are impossible." All 
this is found in a discussion in which, in opposition to Zeller (who 
disbelieves all miracles), he is undertaking the defense of the 
historic credibility of the evangelical narratives. He says that 
Jesus, the Evangelists, and Paul are credible witnesses, and that, 
though there may be doubt about the authenticity of some parts 
of the history, yet there is no sufficient reason for denying the 
stories of the miracles in general. But such a defense is worse 
than open attack. To affirm that the miracles narrated really 
occurred, and yet to affirm that we do not know what " took place 
objectively," is to affirm and deny the same thing in the same 
breath. Everything is referred to a purely subjective standard. 
A miracle, according to him, is anything remarkable in so far as it 
has a bearing on one's religious life. He speaks indeed of extra- 

1 See p. 145. 



KITSCHL ON MIRACLES. 435 

ordinary events ; but inasmuch as he denies that these events in 
any way conflicted with natural laws, he practically denies that 
real miracles occurred. When Zeller retorts {Ibid., p. 110), "If 
they [the violations of natural law] are unthinkable, then they 
are also impossible ; for thinkableness is for us the only mark of 
possibility/' his reply is conclusive. For Eitschl, in distinguish- 
ing miracles from violations of natural law, does not define them 
as events wrought by special operation of divine power independ- 
ently of natural law. His conception of them is apparently as 
much opposed to the latter as to the former conception. In short, 
an event is a miracle to him, not because of any opposition to, or 
independence of, natural law, but it is such simply by virtue of 
the subjective state of the man who witnesses or experiences it. 
It is manifest that this is a radically different conception of the 
miraculous from the ordinary one. It is only one instance of the 
characteristic tendency of Ritschl and his school to use the old 
terms with the old meaning emptied out. Practically this school 
is, so far as miracles are concerned, at one with the purely natu- 
ralistic school. And when Professor Ladd associates Eitschl 
with Nitzsch, Miiller, and Dorner, as a defender of the reality of 
the evangelical miracles (Sacred Scripture, vol. i. pp. 3, 318), he 
puts Ritschl into company with which he is far from belonging. 



436 APPENDIX. 



EXCURSUS VIII. 1 

THE BOOK OF JONAH. 

THE Book of Jonah will doubtless long continue to exercise 
the ingenuity and perplex the faith of many good Chris- 
tians. Let us consider some of the ways in which a Christian 
may evade the apparent significance of Christ's reference to the 
history. 

1. One may suppose Christ to have been mistaken as to the 
trustworthiness of the Old Testament records. That is, he may 
be supposed to have believed the story to be true, though it was 
not true. Christ's veracity is saved at the expense of his 
intelligence. This theory is the least admissible of all those 
which profess to be consistent with faith in Christ. Yet it is 
possible for one to have a very exalted view of Christ's personal 
character, to acknowledge him as a divinely commissioned me- 
diator of spiritual light and salvation, although limited in his 
knowledge of matters respecting which perfect accuracy requires 
an acquaintance with scientific and critical questions such as he 
cannot be supposed to have possessed. If Christ could declare 
himself to be ignorant of the day of his own second coming 
(Mark xiii. 32), may it not be allowable to imagine him to have 
been also ignorant of the exact truth concerning the story of 
Jonah ? Not to enter in detail on the Christological question 
thus raised, it is obvious to say that in the case just referred to 
Christ did not profess to know the thing he was ignorant of. 
He knew the extent of his own ignorance, and was careful not 
to commit himself to any assertion beyond the limits of his own 
knowledge. In the case of Jonah, on the contrary, the hypothesis 
under consideration requires us to suppose him to have made an 
assertion on a point beyond the limits of his knowledge, while yet 
he did not profess any ignorance whatsoever. The declaration in 
Mark xiii. 32, whatever view one may take of it, is remarkable 
as the only one in which Christ directly avows his ignorance. 
It comes in connection with other assertions which imply a very 
high degree of knowledge. Christ puts himself here not only 

i See p. 264. 



THE BOOK OF JONAH. 437 

above all other men, hut above the angels, and makes declarations 
concerning the future which nothing but supernatural knowledge 
could warrant. The confession of ignorance, therefore, strikes 
one with surprise ; and it is no wonder that in various ways 
commentators have endeavored to explain away the apparent 
meaning of it. These explanations may be unsatisfactory ; but 
the more stress one lays upon Christ's declaration of ignorance, 
the more necessary is it to accept the truth of what he implicitly 
and explicitly says respecting his altogether unique knowledge. 
If he is thus trusted, then he must be assumed to have been at 
least conscious of the limitations of his knowledge. And we 
cannot easily conceive such a being to have undertaken to make 
declarations concerning matters of which he knew himself to be 
ignorant. If he did not know whether the story of Jonah was 
true or not, it is derogatory to the simplicity and sincerity of his 
character to suppose him to have intended to vouch for the 
truthfulness of the story. 

2. Again, one may suppose that the passage (Matt. xii. 40) 
in which Christ is said to have referred to the story of Jonah 
and the fish is not genuine. This is a view held by many. 
Stress is laid on the fact that in the parallel passage (Luke xi. 
29-32) Christ only speaks of Jonah as preaching to the Ninevites, 
and makes the " sign " consist only in that. The passage in 
Matthew's Gospel is therefore supposed not to belong to the 
original work, but to have crept in as a later interpolation. 
Textual criticism has shown that interpolations did sometimes 
take place. It is certainly possible that the verse in question is 
an unauthentic addition to the genuine Gospel. But it is certain 
that there is no critical authority for such a conjecture. The 
passage is not omitted in any of the codices of Matthew's 
Gospel. There is no reason for questioning the genuineness 
and authenticity of the passage except such as would be equally 
valid in the case of every other reference made by Christ to 
Old Testament miracles. 1 The process of mind which leads to 
the hypothesis of interpolation is this : First, one doubts the 
Old Testament story ; next, one dislikes to see Christ apparently 
endorsing it; and therefore, finally, one searches for evidence 
that he in fact did not endorse it. If in the search for evidence 
one should find positive external and internal indications of 

1 See Meyer's Commentary in loc. 



438 APPENDIX. 

spuriousness in the passage, such as have weight with those 
who find no intrinsic objection to it, then the case would be 
different. But as the case is, it is not a critical investigation, 
but a critical bias, which finds the evidence of interpolation. 

3. Again, it may be supposed that the passage in Matthew 
is genuine, but that the story of Jonah there referred to is not 
to be understood as authentic history, but rather as a mere alle- 
gory or parabolic story. This theory may assume different forms. 

(a) One may conjecture that the story of Jonah is wholly 
fictitious, and was understood to be fictitious both by Christ and 
his hearers. In that case the reference to it would be analogous 
to that which we often make to characters and incidents in well- 
known works of imagination. But the objections to this view 
are insuperable. In the first place, there is no reason for sup- 
posing the story of Jonah to have been regarded by Jesus' 
contemporaries as a fable or allegory. All the evidence is to 
the opposite effect. 1 In the next place, it is inconceivable that 
Christ could have spoken as he did about Jonah's preaching at 
Nineveh, if both he and his hearers had held the whole story 
to be fictitious. He solemnly declared (Matt. xii. 41 ; Luke xi. 
32) that the men of Nineveh had repented at the preaching of 
Jonah, and would rise up in the judgment and condemn the 
Jews who had rejected the gospel. If both he and the Jews 
addressed held the Book of Jonah to be a fictitious work through- 
out, such a comparison would have been solemn mockery. 
Fictitious characters will certainly never rise up in the judgment ; 
and the appeal to the Ninevites could have excited in the Jews 
no other emotion than that of ridicule, if they regarded the 
story as really fictitious. 

(b) One may conjecture that the Book of Jonah was regarded 
both by Christ and his hearers to be in part historical and in 
part fictitious. In this case the reference to the repentance of 
the Ninevites may be considered as honestly meant, it being 
supposed that Jonah really did go and preach to the Mnevites, 
but that the story of the fish, and other parts of the narrative, 
belong to the poetic drapery of the book. This hypothesis avoids 
the second objection to the first form of the allegorical expla- 

1 Tobit xiv. 4, 8, and Josephus, Ant. ix. 10, 2, refer to the story as historic. 
Davidson (Introduction to the Old Testament, vol. iii. p. 271), while he denies the 
authenticity of the story, yet says, " It was the current belief of the Jews, however, 
that the events narrated respecting Jonah were literally true." 



THE BOOK OF JONAH. 439 

nation, but it is still exposed to the other one : There is not the 
slightest evidence that the Jews held any part of the Book of 
Jonah to be fictitious. Besides, this hypothesis is exposed to an 
objection that does not lie against the other, namely, that it 
requires us to suppose Jesus to make reference to two incidents 
in the history of Jonah, — to both in the same way, as if equally 
authentic, 1 — whereas the two are supposed to be as different as 
fiction and fact. Such a juxtaposition is possible, but exceed- 
ingly improbable. Furthermore, it ill comports with the general 
style of Jesus' address to suppose him to call anything a " sign " 
of his resurrection, which both he and his hearers knew to be a 
merely fictitious event. 

(c) It may be thought that Jesus regarded the story of Jonah 
as fictitious, though his hearers regarded it as true. In this 
case his reference to the story must be taken as an instance of 
accommodation, or of argume?itum ad hominem. So Davidson, 2 
who says, "Where he does not assert a thing on his own inde- 
pendent authority, but merely to confound or confute the Jews 
of his day, he should not be quoted as a voucher for the his- 
torical truth of facts or events." That in some cases Jesus 
may have used this kind of argument may be admitted, though 
this method of interpretation can be only very sparingly resorted 
to. In the case before us it is quite unwarrantable. The allu- 
sion to Jonah was not first made by Jesus' hearers ; his reply, 
therefore, was not a retort provoked by them. He himself in- 
troduces the subject, and asserts "on his own independent au- 
thority" that the prophet preached at Nineveh, and that the 

1 Professor Ladd (Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 67) thinks it "perhaps 
worth noticing, that the part of the narrative of Jonah which may belong to the his- 
toric basis of his book is assumed in categorical statement (see Luke xi. 29-32), while 
a certain part which plainly [?] belongs to the allegorical and poetic attachment of the 
book is given by Matthew as alluded to merely in a figure of comparison." But surely 
this is a subtlety that can hardly be expected to carry much weight. So Christ alludes 
to the brazen serpent (John iii. 14) and to the antediluvians (Matt. xxiv. 37-39) 
merely in a figure of comparison. But do we therefore infer that he regarded either 
of the narratives referred to as fictitious ? In a categorical statement one affirms the 
truth of a thing ; in a comparison one assumes the truth of a thing. 

2 Introduction, etc., vol. iii. p. 270. Davidson, however, is disposed to admit that 
some elements of real history form the basis of the book, though he does not undertake 
to say what they are (p. 279). He says (Ibid.) that " Jonah may have preached to the 
Ninevites," though on the next page he says, ""We cannot believe that he prophesied 
against Nineveh; " and on pages 272 sq. he argues that the whole story of Jonah's 
going to Nineveh is very improbable. 



440 APPENDIX. 

Ninevites repented. If this reference to the story of Jonah 
does not imply Christ's belief in the historical character of 
it, then the same can be said, if one will, of every reference 
which he makes to Old Testament history. When he spoke of 
the Deluge (Matt. xxiv. 37, 38 ; Luke xvii. 26, 27) ; when he re- 
ferred to Abraham as the progenitor of the Jewish race (Luke 
xiii. 16 ; John viii. 37) ; when he called Moses the lawgiver of 
the Jews (John vii. 19), and replied to the people concerning 
Moses' law of divorce (Matt. xix. 7, 8) ; when he argued con- 
cerning the resurrection on the ground of what Moses heard out 
of the burning bush (Luke xx. 37) ; when he quoted the conduct 
of David in eating the shew-bread (Matt. xii. 3, 4) ; when he re- 
ferred to the prophets Isaiah (Matt. xiii. 14, xv. 7) and Daniel 
(Matt. xxiv. 15) ; when he spoke generally of the prophets (Matt. 
v. 12 ; Luke xviii. 31, xxiv. 25 ; John vi. 45), or of the law and the 
prophets (Matt. v. 17, vii. 12, xxii. 40 ; Luke xvi. 16, 29), — in all 
such cases one may, if he choose, assume that he was only using 
the argumentum ad hominem, not meaning to imply that he had 
any belief in the existence of Abraham, Moses, David, or the 
prophets, or in the written history of God's dealings with the 
Jewish race in general. 

It is obvious that there must be a very strict limit to the ap- 
plication of this hypothesis of accommodation. If, when Jesus, 
without direct provocation, introduces a reference to some inci- 
dent of Old Testament history, speaks of it as if it were a fact, 
and makes a practical application of it, we may yet assume that 
he really means only to imply that his hearers thought, though 
erroneously, that the history was an authentic one, why, then 
the door is open for unlimited license. If this principle is good 
for Christ, it must be equally good for his disciples. All Paul's 
discourse and argumentation about the Mosaic law and Hebrew 
history may be regarded as not implying that he believed there 
was anything historically true in what he referred to ; he may 
have been only using the argumentum ad hominem. The apos- 
tles may be supposed to have received esoteric instruction from 
Jesus in the department of higher criticism, as the result of which 
they came to hold the Old Testament to be, generally, a collec- 
tion of myths and fables ; but inasmuch as the common people 
held the history in great reverence, they may have been instructed 
to speak and write as if they themselves shared the popular be- 
lief. Since the object was to introduce a better religion in the 



THE BOOK OF JONAH. 441 

place of the Jewish superstition, it might have been thought 
easier to accomplish the object by treating the current belief as 
well founded, and the new doctrine as a fulfilment of the old, 
than by attacking the old religion as resting on a false founda- 
tion. By adopting such a view of the attitude taken by Christ 
and his disciples towards the Hebrew religion and history, criti- 
cism gets a very wide field of operation. Any theory of the 
origin and meaning of the several Old Testament books which 
the "critical feeling" may select can then be freely promul- 
gated, and all that, without surrendering faith in the authority 
of Jesus Christ and his apostles. 

But this would evidently be going too far. When one has 
come to look upon the founders of Christianity as such adepts in 
simulation, recommending their doctrine as being a new and im- 
proved edition of the old, when in reality they regarded the old 
as a fabulous and worthless mass ; in other words, when whole- 
sale deception is supposed to have been employed in order to 
secure the adoption of the new religion, one's faith in the immac- 
ulate truthfulness of this new religion can hardly be very firm. 

The foregoing may seem to be a caricature of the principle of 
interpretation in question. Doubtless no one ever carried it to 
this extreme ; yet, if it can be applied to such a case as Christ's 
reference to the history of Jonah, it is difficult to see where the 
limit can be drawn. For, be it remembered, the prime question 
in this connection is not whether the narrative alluded to is in- 
trinsically improbable or not ; it is rather a question concerning 
the manner in which the narrative is alluded to, and the purpose 
for which the allusion is made. If, whenever one for any reason 
regards an incident of Old Testament history as legendary or 
fictitious, he quietly assumes that every reference to it in the 
New Testament is a case of accommodation to popular prejudice, 
there is manifestly no method of deciding what the cases of 
accommodation are. Each man will have his own standard of 
application for the convenient hermeneutical rule. But this 
would be making Christ and the New Testament writers waxen 
figures capable of being moulded according to the caprice of 
every critic. 

What criterion, then, is to be adopted in determining how far 
the language of Christ or of his apostles is to be explained as an 
accommodation to prevalent opinions rather than as an expression 
of their own ? 



442 APPENDIX. 

i. The presumption is against every alleged instance of such 
accommodation. The burden of proof rests with those who make 
the allegation. There must be positive evidence adduced that in 
this case the general rule does not hold. The general rule is that 
every speaker and writer must be presumed to mean what he 
seems to mean, and to believe what he seems to affirm. It is 
only by means of cogent reasons that a particular case can be 
shown to be an exception to this rule. We are not here dealing 
with ordinary cases of rhetorical figures. In most instances it 
lies on the surface whether such a figure is used or not. It is 
not often difficult to see when a speaker or writer is making use 
of irony, or paradox, or hyperbole, or metaphor, or metonymy. 
The connection generally indicates clearly enough whether the 
language is to be understood in the strictest literalness. The 
question now before us is whether, when all due allowance has 
been made for tropes of this sort, the language used expresses 
the opinions and beliefs of the speaker, or is adopted out of com- 
pliance with the sentiments of those addressed. This is not one 
of these figures of speech, whose object is to enliven or intensify 
an obvious meaning ; it is using language without meaning what 
the language says. Against interpreting language in this way 
the presumption is always immensely strong. 

ii. It is not an instance of accommodation, in the sense here 
spoken of, when words and phrases are retained in use, after the 
progress of knowledge has shown that the original use of them 
rested on a mistake. Thus, when we talk about the sun's rising, 
or the dew's falling, or about a lunatic or a splenetic person, we 
do not mean to affirm what the phraseology, literally interpreted, 
would imply. Though a "lunatic" originally denoted a man 
struck mad by the moon, we may still use the word in the general 
sense of " madman," it being understood that the etymological 
sense of the word has, on account of the progress of scientific 
knowledge, given place to another. So long as this change of 
meaning is clearly and generally understood, there is no " accom- 
modation " in the sense of the word now under consideration. 

iii. It is a sort of accommodation, when, in cases analogous to 
the above-mentioned, the original error which gave rise to a cer- 
tain phraseology still generally or widely prevails, and the few 
who have attained a more accurate knowledge still use the 
phraseology, even at the risk of appearing to share the popular 
error. For example, an astronomer might speak of "fixed stars," 



THE BOOK OF JONAH. 443 

and thus seem to affirm the truth of a common notion that the 
stars are motionless, though he really believes quite otherwise. 
But this he would do only when the reference to the stars is 
incidental, and when it would turn him aside from his main 
point, to correct the vulgar error. Otherwise, if for convenience' 
sake he still used the current phrase, he would yet take pains to 
explain that he uses it in a different sense from that which 
implies that the stars are motionless. 

It may be an instance of such accommodation, when Christ 
spoke of demoniacs as if he agreed with the common opinion 
that the unfortunates so named were really possessed by demons. 
The mere word " demoniac " might be used as we now use " luna- 
tic." to denote a certain well-kDOwn disordered state of a person, 
without committing one's self to any opinion as to the cause of 
the state. If it were clear, first, that he merely used the term as 
a current and convenient one, and, next, that he did not unne- 
cessarily confirm the popular impression by the manner in which 
he spoke of the persons in question, it might be argued that this 
was a case in which there was no need of his undertaking to cor- 
rect an error of the prevalent psychology. There are difficulties 
in the way of this view, growing out of the fact that, as his lan- 
guage is reported to us, he appears to endorse the popular opinion 
by the use of expressions which he would hardly have used, if he 
had not shared the current notion, and if he was only refraining 
from a direct attempt to uproot it. If he went out of his way, as 
it were, to confirm the people in their theory of the cause of the 
so-called demoniacal possessions, then the only conclusion con- 
sistent with reverence for his simplicity and veracity is to sup- 
pose that he agreed with the people in their conception of the 
cause of the demoniacal phenomena. 

iv. But it is an essentially different case when Jesus makes 
reference to historical events and institutions for purposes of 
illustration or instruction. Here there is no question about mere 
phraseology which may have originated in a mistaken notion of 
physical or spiritual causation. It is rather a question of his- 
torical fact. Any voluntary, unprovoked reference to such facts, 
or supposed facts, on Jesus' part must have been understood as 
implying his own belief in their genuineness, unless he in some 
way guarded or qualified his remarks. When he was accused of 
casting out demons through Beelzebub (Matt. xii. 24), his reply 
might not improperly be taken as a case of argumentum ad homi- 



444 APPENDIX. 

nem. The accusation was made by his enemies ; and he takes 
them on their own ground : "If I by Beelzebub cast out demons, 
by whom do your sons cast them out ? " (verse 27) . This passage 
by itself might leave us in doubt whether he believed in the 
existence of Beelzebub or not. But certainly we could not infer 
from it that he did not believe in such a being. We must go to 
other passages for fuller light. But when Jesus, without being 
especially challenged, himself introduced references to incidents 
in Hebrew history, he must be presumed to have referred to them 
as historic facts. The case is not like that of speakers or writers 
who illustrate their remarks by reference to characters or inci- 
dents in classical mythology or in well-known works of fiction. 
In such cases both the speaker and the hearer understand that 
the things referred to are fictitious. In referring to Hebrew his- 
tory, on the contrary, Jesus appealed to what was understood to 
be real history, and no mythology or fiction. 

It may, however, be argued that by rhetorical license Christ 
might have used such a story as that of Jonah by way of illus- 
tration, even though he himself regarded it as allegorical. The 
possibility of this may perhaps be conceded. But against assum- 
ing it to be a fact must be insisted (1) that, if he did regard 
the book as allegorical, it would hardly be consistent with his 
straightforward truthfulness to refer to it as if he thought it to 
be real history, when he knew that he would be understood to en- 
dorse it as such; (2) that there is no evidence that he did regard 
it as allegorical ; and (3) that there is no proof that the author of 
the book meant it as allegorical. There is, therefore, an im- 
mense presumption in favor of regarding Christ as implicitly 
endorsing the truthfulness of the book. 

Still, it is urged by some that there are clear indications in the 
Book of Jonah itself that it was not meant to be taken as au- 
thentic history, but rather as an allegory or parabolic fiction. 
"A critical examination of the Book of Jonah,' 7 it is said, 1 
" seems to show that it is a composition designed by its author 
as allegorical and didactic upon a certain basis of historic facts." 
And this being so, it is asked, " Shall it be claimed that Jesus 
could not quote from an allegorical book, provided it be proved by 
criticism that such a book exists?" 2 No, we answer, "pro- 
vided it be proved." What, then, are the proofs which criticism 

1 Ladd, Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 67. 

2 Ibid., p. 68. 



THE BOOK OF JOXAH. 445 

brings, that the book was not intended to be understood as au- 
thentic history ? They are such as these : The strange character 
and conduct of Jonah himself, in trying to flee from Jehovah, 
and in repining at the non-fulfilment of his prophecy; the im- 
probability of a solitary Hebrew prophet making the long and 
toilsome journey to Nineveh ; the extraordinary effects attributed 
to his preaching; the lack of details in the account of Nineveh 
and its king ; the story of the miraculous preservation through 
the fish. 1 The argument, in short, is that the story is intrinsi- 
cally improbable, that it is therefore not real history, and was 
not intended to be understood as history. 

Now the first reflection which this argument suggests is that 
the author of the book seems to have made a bad failure, if his 
intention was to be understood as writing allegory. To be sure, 
Davidson tells us,' 2 " The story speaks for itself ; and he who will 
not see the fabulous in its character and form may remain igno- 
rant." Yet the fact is that the world generally has failed to see 
what is here declared to be so patent. Davidson admits 3 that 
the Jews believed the events narrated respecting Jonah to be lit- 
erally true. It certainly is unfortunate that the author of the 
book succeeded so poorly in making his intention clear. 

A second reflection suggested by the argument is that the same 
considerations which are urged to prove the book to be unhis- 
torical bear also against the assumption that its object is didac- 
tic. Yet these two propositions are usually conjoined. But a 
fictitious narrative, strictly speaking, teaches nothing at all. The 
most impressive teaching is the narrative of instructive facts. 4 
Fiction may indeed be designed to convey a moral lesson, but it 
can do so only in so far as it is true to nature, that is, in so far 
as it is supposed to be like that which really does happen. A nar- 
rative may be judged to be fictitious because of the inherent im- 
probability of the events narrated, as, for example, in the case of 
the stories of Jules Verne. But in proportion to the extrava- 
gance and incredibility of the narrative it must necessarily fail 
to instruct. This self-contradiction of the critics in their judg- 

1 These are the points urged by Davidson. Introduction, etc., pp. 272 sqq. The 
argument for an allegorical interpretation of the book is presented in greater detail and 
with much force by Dr. C. H. H. "Wright, Exegetical Studies, pp. 34 sqq. 

2 Ibid., p. 280.' 

3 Ibid., p. 271. 

* Cf. F. Watson, The Laic and the Prophets (Hulsean lectures for 1882), p. 52. 



446 APPENDIX. 

ment of the Book of Jonah, is very obvious. The book is conjec- 
tured, for example, to have been composed in order to justify God 
for not having fulfilled the prophecies against the heathen, 1 or to 
have been written after the time of Ezra, as a protest against 
the " particularism " of the priestly party. 2 Now, even if this 
were admitted to be true (though there is not a particle of evidence 
of it), still the question arises, How did the writer expect to ac- 
complish his object ? If his contemporaries cherished narrow 
conceptions concerning God's feelings and purposes towards the 
heathen, how did he expect to correct such conceptions by & fic- 
titious story about the prophet Jonah's preaching to the Nine- 
vites ? His narrow-minded contemporaries might well have re- 
torted : " If you can furnish no better proof of your proposition 
than a confessedly false story, then you could not more effect- 
ually proclaim the weakness of your doctrine." And if the 
writer, in order to prove his pious doctrine, not only invented 
his facts, but invented especially extravagant and incredible 
facts, a bad case would have been made only so much the worse. 
No ; an erroneous conception of the character of God could have 
been corrected by such a story only in case the story had been 
supposed to be true. 3 This is a proposition whose correctness is 
especially obvious with reference to attempts to alter current 
notions. A fictitious work may be able to illustrate and enforce 
moral notions already prevalent ; but it would be absurd to en- 

1 Hitzig, Die zvoolf hleinen Propheten, p. 161. 

2 Kuenen, Religion of Israel, vol. ii. p. 242 ; Davidson, /. c, p. 277. Numberless 
other more or less fantastic interpretations have been propounded, which may he found 
in Maurer's Commentarius. Cf. Delitzsch, Etwas iiber das Buck Jona, in Rudelbach 
und Guericke's Zeitschrift filr die gesammte Lutherische Theologie, 1840. 

3 Professor Briggs, however {Biblical Study, pp. 238, 239), speaking of the hooks 
of Esther and Jonah, says, " The model of patriotic devotion, the lesson of the univer- 
sality of divine providence and grace, would he still as forcihle, and the gain would he 
at least equal to the loss, if they were to he regarded as inspired ideals rather than in- 
spired statements of the real." No doubt fictitious narratives may powerfully excite the 
moral and religious feelings, when those feelings already exist. But a disbelieved or 
doubted truth cannot be made an undoubted truth by means of fiction. If, for example, 
Caesar Borgia is wrongly held to have been a moral monster, the error may be corrected, 
and the public opinion altered, by a historical investigation of facts. But an avowed 
-fiction, which should portray him as a model of virtue, would leave his reputation just 
where it is. But even with reference to motives and emotions and convictions already 
existent, the proposition of Professor Briggs cannot be maintained. Would a fictitious 
Paul, or Huss, or Wilberforce make the same impression on the world as the real 
man ? 



THE BOOK OF JONAH. 447 

deavor to reform the moral or religious sentiments of a people by 
a fiction confessed to be fiction. If, for example, the Book of 
Deuteronomy was composed in the reign of Josiah, and if its 
object was to secure the enforcement of certain new political and 
ceremonial regulations, and if, further, the legislative book was 
fictitiously ascribed to Moses, the object of this fictitious ascrip- 
tion must have been defeated, if it had been understood to be 
fictitious. The people might have stood in awe of the real Moses 
whose law was reported to have been brought to light; but if 
they had been told that the law did not really emanate from 
Moses, but only from somebody who thought it would have been 
well if Moses had promulgated it, and who therefore called it the 
law of Moses, it is manifest that such a trick would have met 
with well-merited ridicule ; it would be like nothing else so much 
as Bottom the weaver's careful explanation that, in acting the 
part of a lion, he was really not a lion at all. The theory of 
Kuenen, Wellhausen, and their adherents, that religious reforms 
were brought about by the introduction of supposititious books, 
is transparently foolish, unless it is meant that by means of these 
books the people were successfully deceived. And the same must 
be said respecting the Book of Jonah. If its author had such a 
didactic purpose as is above spoken of, he must have meant to 
be understood as writing a true history; else he would have 
defeated his own purpose. 

The theory of a didactic purpose, and the theory that the book 
is a pure and acknowledged fiction, are, therefore, destructive of 
each other. "We must adopt one of the three views : either 
that the author had a moral aim and accomplished it by an in- 
tentional deception ; or that he had no moral aim, but was amus- 
ing himself by a flight of his fancy ; or, finally, that he had a 
moral aim which he accomplished by telling a narrative which is 
substantially true. 

Substantially true, we say. For it may well be that a construc- 
tive fancy worked up the facts into the form which they have. 
As in the prologue of the Book of Job, the incidents are woven 
together in a poetic way ; there is a crowding together of remark- 
able things such as in real life seems improbable. There is 
plausibility in the hypothesis that the author used a certain art 
in dressing up the story of the prophet's experiences. But, after 
all, the intrinsically most improbable thing in the book is just 
that which Christ most directly attests, namely, the mission of a 



448 APPENDIX. 

Hebrew prophet to a great heathen city. It is contrary to all 
analogy ; yet it is the one leading thought of the book. The 
book opens with Jehovah's command' to Jonah to go to Nineveh; 
it is made up of incidents connected with the prophet's attempt 
to evade the command, and with his final execution of it ; it ends 
with Jehovah's lesson to the repining prophet founded on his 
treatment of the repentant city. It is, therefore, consistent when 
critics like Hitzig 1 pronounce this feature of the book purely 
fictitious. The miraculous incidents in the history are not with- 
out parallel in other parts of the Old Testament ; the really 
strange and seemingly improbable thing is this sending of a lone 
man to an immense foreign city with a threatening message. 

When, therefore, less radical critics admit that Jonah's preach- 
ing in Nineveh and the effects of his preaching " may belong to 
the historic basis of his book," 2 the chief intrinsic improbability 
of the narrative is conceded not to be insuperable. Why, then, 
should we question the authenticity of the details ? So strange 
a mission, it might be expected, would have strange accompani- 
ments. Yet, strictly speaking, there is only one outright miracle 
reported, namely, that concerning the fish. If this miracle gives 
offense, it must be either because any miracle is offensive, or else 
because there is something peculiarly offensive in this miracle. 
But as Prof. R. A. Bedford 3 well remarks, " If Jonah was to be 
preserved alive, when cast out of the vessel into a raging sea, 
what more fitting form of the miracle can we imagine than that 
he should be cast out by a great fish on the neighboring shore ? " 
At all events, if the story of the fish, as a fiction, could serve any 
useful purpose, then, as a fact, it must have served that purpose 
still better. Undoubtedly the author did design to convey cer- 
tain lessons by the story of Jonah. It teaches that God's pater- 
nal government is not confined to the Jews, but extends to the 
Gentiles as well ; that it is futile to try to escape from the divine 
authority ; that God can deliver one from the extremest peril ; 
that he can use even unwilling instruments for the accomplish- 
ment of his great ends ; that the granting of mercy to the peni- 
tent is better than to gratify the pride of reputation. These 
truths are taught ; for they lie in the things that are written. 
They are not taught in the form of didactic propositions ; but they 

1 Die zwolf "kleinen Prophet en, p. 158. 

2 Ladd, Sacred Scripture, p. 67. 

3 Studies in the Book of Jonah, p. 24. An excellent monograph. 



THE BOOK OF JONAH. 449 

are implied in the story, especially if the story is true. It is a 
singular notion of some men, that if a book appears to contain a 
moral, it must needs be fictitious. This notion is carried so far 
that the same narrative, when regarded as a fiction, is pronounced 
more instructive than when regarded as a true history. Thus 
Kuenen remarks, concerning the Book of Jonah, " The whole 
of this writing — which, interpreted historically, so justly gives 
offense — breathes a spirit of benevolence and universal humanity 
which is very attractive." x That is, if God had really by his 
providence brought about such occurrences as are narrated in the 
book, it would have been justly offensive ; but if the occurrences 
are only imagined to have taken place, they convey a most at- 
tractive lesson ! In the name of common sense and right reason 
we must protest against this absurd and preposterous conception 
of things. If Biblical history is to be accounted authentic just 
in proportion as it conveys no determinable lesson, 2 then there is 
not only an end of the doctrine that God has revealed himself in 
and through history, but there is an end of all solid foundation 
of religious truth and Biblical science. We are introduced into 
a world in which worth and truth have no relation to each other, 
in which fiction is more instructive than fact, and imagination 
more to be trusted than experience. Xo wonder that, with such 
a principle for a guide, the critics find the Bible abounding in 
Tendenzschriften, — writings whose aim is to establish a theory 
of theology or of history rather than to set forth the truth. No 
wonder that, with such a keen appreciation of the value of the 
imagination in the production of didactic fiction, they should 
make diligent use of their own imagination in assigning author- 
ship, dates, and fictitiousness to the books of the Bible. 

In the third place, we remark concerning the allegorical inter- 
pretation of the Book of Jonah, that it is opposed to the healthy 
tendencies of Biblical exegesis. The drift among scholars of all 
classes is decidedly against the theory of allegory in the inter- 
pretation of the Bible. Even the one book (Song of Solomon) 3 

1 Religion of Israel, vol. ii. p. 244. 

2 A view naively expressed by Hitzig {Geschichte des Volkes Israel, vol. i. p. 47), 
when, concerning the incident narrated in Gen. xxxv. 22, he observes that it is to be 
regarded as " an actual event, because not adapted to have reference to the nation as a 
whole, nor to involve any other far-reaching significance " ! 

3 The allegorical interpretation of this book has much more to say for itself than 
that of the Book of Jonah. (1) It is poetry, making no pretense to being history. 
(2) There are suggestions of such an interpretation in the frequent representations of 

29 



450 APPENDIX. 

which has longest resisted this tendency is now, even by many, if 
not by most, orthodox interpreters, regarded as not having been 
composed as an allegory conveying an occult meaning concern- 
ing the Divine love, or the relation between the Messiah and his 
Church. It is remarkable that orthodox men should nowadays 
be inclined to resort to this method of interpretation in the 
case of the Book of Jonah, which has usually been accepted 
as a statement of historic fact. Now the theory of allegory is 
never plausible unless there is some positive evidence, internal 
or external, that the author of the work in question designed it 
to be understood as an allegory. In the case of the Book of 
Jonah all the positive evidence we have points to its being in- 
tended and understood as history. The mention of a prophet 
Jonah the son of Amittai in 2 Kings xiv. 25, the allusions in To- 
bit and Josephus to Jonah's going to Nineveh, the general belief of 
the Jews that the story was an account of facts, and Jesus' refer- 
ence to the repentance of the Ninevites, are the chief items of 
external evidence ; and they all point to the historical character 
of the book. And as to internal evidence, if the one or two mi- 
raculous incidents in it are to be regarded as indicating its allegor- 
ical character, then by parity of reasoning nearly every historical 
book of the Bible must come into the same category. If, further, 
the moral and spiritual suggestions of the story are to be re- 
garded as evidence that it is allegorical, then for a like reason all 
of the Bible history which is morally instructive is to be esteemed 
not really history, but only religious instruction in parabolic form. 
So long as no more cogent reasons than these can be given for the 
notion that the book was meant as allegorical, it is a misnomer to 
speak of the notion as the result of " criticism," unless by this 
term is meant subjective fancy or unfounded conjecture. 

The case then is this : The Book of Jonah purports to be a 
veritable history. It was, according to all the evidence before us, 
so regarded by the Jews of the time of Christ. There is no proof 
that it was originally designed, or has generally been understood, 
to be anything else. Jesus confessedly refers to the central 
feature of it (Jonah's mission to Nineveh) as a historical fact. 
In immediate connection with this reference he refers also to the 
account of the miraculous preservation of the prophet. There is 
not the slightest internal evidence for thinking that he regarded 

God as being the husband of his chosen people. (3) The allegorical interpretation 
has been the prevalent one amongst both Jewish and Christian scholars. 



THE BOOK OF JONAH. 451 

this as less a fact than the other. The question, then, recurs, 
Does Christ's reference to the story of Jonah imply that he 
regarded it as historical ? And the answer can no longer be 
doubtful. If there were evidence (as there is not) that the story 
was designed by the author to be understood, and generally was 
understood, as an allegory; or even if there were evidence (as 
there is not) that Christ regarded the story as allegorical, while 
his hearers did not, then it might be admitted that his reference 
to it is no authentication of the miraculous event. But in default 
of this evidence the conclusion is unavoidable that he spoke of 
the event as a fact. He, no doubt, " spoke in perfect freedom 
from the ties of mere criticism." * This may mean, however, not 
only that he refrained in popular discourse from uttering his 
critical judgment respecting the allegorical character of the Book 
of Jonah, but that he was quite indifferent to the opinions which 
after eighteen centuries certain critics would propound concerning 
it. If it is true that "the commentator may not help out his 
dulness by the support of Christ's infallible authority," 2 it is no 
less true that the critic may not help out his acuteness by the 
support of Christ's imaginary authority. 

1 Ladd, Sacred Scrijpture, p. 68. 2 ibid. 



TOPICAL INDEX. 



Page 

Absolute and Relative, the 415 sqq. 

Absoluteness of God and personality 54, 412 sqq. 

Acceleration theory of miracles 104 sq. 

Accommodation in revelation 345 sq., 439 sqq. 

Adam and Eve, the story of 265 

Agnostic view of miracles 131 sqq. 

Aguosticism aud theism 415, 426 sqq. 

Allegorical interpretations 266 sqq., 438 sqq., 449 sq. 

Anthropomorphism 53, 397 sqq. 

Apocrypha, the 290 

Apostolic authority 308 sqq., 325 

inspiration 305 sqq., 321 

Arnold, Matthew, on miracles 157 sqq. 

Atheism and morality 39 sqq. 

general consequences of 30 sqq. 

not a mere negation 30 

Authority of the Bible 318 sqq. 

Authorship of Old Testament Books, Christ's testimony on 274 

Berkeley on the cognition of other persons 391 sq. 

John Fiske on 402 

Beyschlag on miracles 105 sq., 429 sqq. 

Bible, authority of 318 sqq., 329 sqq. 

infallibility of 319, 342, 347 

and the " Word of God " 367 

Bruce, Prof. A. B., on evidential value of miracles 186 sq. 

Brutes and men, difference between 17 

Canon, the Biblical 336, 363 sqq. 

Causation, Berkeley on 404 

Fiske on 402 sq., 412 sq. 

Hume on 98 sq., 412 

Christ, authority of 59 sq., 93 sqq.,, 141 sqq., 210 sq., 333 

as a leader 94 sq. 

his relation to miracles 157, 160, 179 sqq., 186, 221 

his moral perfection 134, 142, 153 sq., 182, 216 

his miraculous power 179 sqq. 

his attitude towards the Old Testament . . . 231 sqq., 263 sq., 436 sqq. 



454 TOPICAL IXDEX. 

Page 

Christ, his resurrection 196 sqq. 

his uniqueness 140 sq., 168, 183, 210 sq. 

various views of character of 156 

Christian experience and the Bible 327, 337 

Christianity, alleged Aryan origin of 229 sqq. 

as a moral power 192 sqq. 

skeptical view of origin of . 168 sqq. 

presumption in favor of 360 

a revelation 324, 352 

Church and the Canon, the 363 sqq. 

Cognition, individual, precedes instruction 10 sqq . 

of mind 10 sq., 391 

Common sense, the Christian 337 sqq. 

Conscience, the aboriginal 75 sqq. 

and theism 39 

evolutionary theory of 40 sq. 

Consciousness, the Christian 317, 319 

the individual and the common 389 sqq. 

Maudsley on the validity of 389 sqq. 

and the divine personality 419 

Cosmic Philosophy, the 397 sqq. 

Cosmological argument, the 53 

Creation, story of the 265 sqq., 272 sqq. 

Credulity of critics 208 

Criticism, Biblical, right of 330, 355 

of miracle stories 220 sq. 

affected by prepossessions 155 sqq., 360 sqq. 

the higher 374 sqq. 

limitations of 363 sqq., 370 sqq. 

Darwinianism 73 

Deism, weakness of . 62 

Demoniacs ' 443 

Dependence, feeling of 22, 27 

Design, instinctive demand for 49, 56 sq. 

Deuteronomy, critical views of 375 sqq., 447 

Discrepancies in the Bible 331, 339 sqq. 

Double sense of Scripture 241 

Duty, sense of 39 sq. 

Ecclesiastes, authorship of 374 sq. 

Education, importance of, in formation of opinion . . . . 5, 39, 358 sq. 

Empiricism 402 sq. 

Ephesians, Epistle to the, and the higher criticism 372 sq. 

Error, significance of the fact of 12, 34, 410 

Essential and non-essential in the Bible 337 sqq. 

Evidences of Christianity now and at first 164 sqq. 

Evil, moral, Mr. Royce on 35 

Evolution, eternal series of 48 sq. 



TOPICAL INDEX. 455 

Page 

Evolution philosophy, the 399 sqq. 

Experience, Christian, and the Bible 327 sq. 

evidential force of 191 sqq. 



Fairbairu, A. M. on the primeval revelation 65 sqq. 

Fiction in the Bible 374 sqq., 433 sqq. 

Fiske, John, on the Absolute and personality 412 sqq. 

his philosophy considered 397 sqq. 

Eorce, the agnostic Deity 419 sqq. 

Fraud, as an agency in producing the Bible 370 sqq., 441, 447 

Free will and atheism 31 sq. 

Freedom of thought 359 



Genius, religious 134 sq. 

Gloatz on miracles 115 sqq. 

God, notion of, not au iutuition 7, 26 sq. 

innate tendencies to believe in a 26, 49 sqq. 

theories of origin of belief in a 21 sqq. 

personality of 397, 412 sqq. 

Gospels, the, vs. the other New Testament books 333 sqq. 

Greek philosophy and Christian dogma 230 



Haeckel on nature 42 

Harmonizing function of the Christian judgment 339 sq. 

Herrmann on Christ and revelation 144 sqq. 

History, Old Testament, how far endorsed by the New Testament . 265 sqq. 
Hume on miracles 9S sq. 

Idealism vs. materialism 391 sq. 

Ignorance, human, as proof of divine existence 34 

Illusions in cognition 4, 12 

Individual, as related to common, beliefs 16 

Infallibility of the Bible 319, 343 *qq. 

Infant cognition 8, 17 

Infinite, the, and God's personality 413 

metaphysical puzzle concerning the 413 

Inspiration and revelation 230, 237 sqq. 

definition of 233 sqq. 

mechanical theory of 254 sqq., 369 

of the Biblical writers 237 

of Paul . . 312, 363.^. 

proof of Biblical 293 sqq. 

of words 287 

Intelligence, origin of 36 

Interpretation of the Bible 328, 337 sqq., 342 

Intuitive truths 7, 14 



456 TOPICAL INDEX. 

Page 

Jesus, see Christ. 

John, Gospel of, authorship of 207, 384 

his testimony on Christ's resurrection 207 

the Baptist 158 sq., 187 sq. 

Jonah, Book of 436 sqq. 

Judaism and Christianity 229 sqq. 

Jugglery and miracle-working 176 

Kaftan on origin of theism 22 sq. 

Knowledge, a product of individual and general cognition 16 

reality of 12, 356, 406 sqq. 

in general communicated 4 sqq. 

Kuenen on Deuteronomy 378 

Ladd, Prof. G. T., on inspiration 291 sqq. 

on miracles 106 sqq., 114, 179 

Language, importance of, in cognition 5, 11, 18, 394 

primeval 66 sqq., 71 sq. 

Laws of nature and miracles 106, 111 sqq., 218, 429 sqq. 

Leland on primeval revelation 423 sq. 

Lessing on the pursuit of truth 356 sq. 

Luther's prayer for Melanchthon's life 121 

Materialism and morality 41-47 

and idealism 391 sq. 

and immortality 43 sq. 

Mathematical truths 8 

Matter, belief in the existence of 12, 426 

Maudsley on the validity of consciousness 389 sqq. 

Messianic notions of the Jews 161, 184 

prophecies 234 sqq., 256 sqq. 

Miracle of the loaves 10S sq., 212 sq., 429 sqq. 

of the leper 211 

of water made wine 104 sqq., 185 

Miracles, absolute and relative 114 sqq. 

acceleration theory of 104 

agnostic view of 132 sqq., 426 

Arnold, M., on 157 sqq. 

Beyschlag on 429 sqq. 

criticism of narratives of 219 sqq. 

criteria of 224 

definition of 97 sqq., 146 sq. 

evidential value of 124 sqq., 225 sq. 

faith in, relation of, to Christian faith 173 sqq. 

considered as obstacles to faith 167 

of healing 214 sqq. 

Jesus as a worker of 157, 160, 179 sqq., 186 

Jewish conception of 102 sq. 

relation of, to natural law 100, 106, 111 sqq., lUsqq., 147 sq., 218, 429 sq. 



TOPICAL INDEX. 457 

Page 

Miracles, mesmeric theory of 105, 433 

Moses' injunction concerning 177 

narratives of, and criticism 155 sqq., 219 sqq. 

of the O. T., how far authenticated by the N. T. . 259 sqq., 436 sqq. 

preconceptions concerning, effect of 362 

proof of 196 sqq., 209 sqq. 

proved by the doctrine 179 sqq., 188 sq. 

effects of questioning the 169 sqq. 

Ritschl on 145 sq., 434 sq. 

true, how distinguished from false 175 sqq. 

Moral argument for the divine existence 50 

law as immutable, sense of 40 sq. 

order of the universe 46 

sense 39 sqq. 

Morality, atheistic 32, 42, 193 

and Christianity 192 sq. 

and theism 37 sqq. 

in the Deity 38 sq., 398 sqq. 

of the Old Testament 345 sqq. 

Moses as a legislator 447 

and the Pentateuch 274 

Mystical Christianity 226 



Nature, laws of 102, 111 sqq. 

Necessitarianism 38 

New Testament, authority of 325 

Old Testament and the New 232 sqq. 

miracles of the 259 sqq. 

New Testament interpretation of 335 

prophecies of Christ 234 sqq. 

Ontological argument 53, 413 



Pantheism 47 

Pantheistic tendencies of rationalism 62, 133 

Paradise, Biblical story of 267 sqq. 

Paul and the other apostles 334 

his apostolic authority 289, 310 

on the resurrection of Christ 199 sqq. 

his attitude towards the Old Testament 232 

Tubingen theory and 372 

Pentateuch, authorship of 274, 373 sqq. 

Perception of the outward world 12 

Perfection of the Bible 347 sqq. 

Personality, cognition of other men's 10 sqq., 390 sqq. 

of God 397 sqq., 412 sqq. 

Peter, his testimony on Christ's resurrection 208 



458 TOPICAL INDEX. 

Page 

Pfleiderer on the primeval revelation 79 sqq. 

Pfleiderer on revelation in general 133 sqq. 

Prayer, answers to 121 sq. 

relation of, to theism 23 

Prepossessions in criticism 355 sqq. 

Primeval man, uniqueness of his condition 70 sqq. 

Prophecy concerning the Jews 250 

evidential use of 243 sqq. 

minuteness in, not desirable 251 sqq. 

oriental features of 247 

shaped by conceptions of the time 249, 254 sq. 

Prophets, their general office 245 sq. 

Providences, special 120 sqq. 

Pseudonymy in the Scriptures . . . 374 sqq. 

Psychicalness of God 398 sqq. 

Rabbinical interpretations in the New Testament 335 

Rabinowitz, Joseph, reference to 350 

Rationalism, former and present 132 sq. 

Reason, the absolute 414 

a collective possession 18 

Relative and the Absolute, the 415 sqq. 

Relativity of knowledge 13, 405 sqq., 416 sq. 

Religion and morality 51 

natural and revealed 136 

theories of origin of 21 sqq., 419 

transmitted 2 sq., 138 

Religious impulse, the 138 

opinions, formation of 358 

Resurrection of Christ, fact of 196 sqq. 

M. Arnold on 163 

Herrmann on 148 

Revelation, alleged impossibility of 79 

natural expectation of 59, 62 

the Christian, general features of 87 sqq. 

marks of 96, 132 sqq. 

antecedent probability of 79 

primeval 65 sqq., 423 sqq. 

the record of 279 sqq. 

transmission of 89 sq. 

Revelations, multiplicity of alleged 64 

Ritschl on miracles 145 sq., 434 sq. 

on Christ's character 142 sq. 

Satan as miracle-worker 177 

in Paradise 269 sq. 

Senses, testimony of 4, 12 

Sibylline Oracles quoted 252 

Sin, relation of, to revelation 91 sq. 



TOPICAL INDEX. 459 

Page 

Sinlessness of Christ 153 sqq., 182 

Skepticism of the present time 1 

Smith, W. R on " legal fiction " 377 sqq. 

Solomon's Song 449 

Spencer, Herbert, on personality of God 397 sqq., 412 sqq. 

philosophy of 400 sqq. 

Stuart, Moses, on typical interpretation 235 sqq. 

Supernatural, the, in revelation 96 

in the New Testament 161 

Taylor, W. M., on evidential value of miracles 174 sqq., 189 sq. 

Teleological argument, the 49 sq. 

Testimonium Spiritu Sancti 320 

Thanmaturgy and miracle-working 157 sq. 

Theism, theories of origin of 21, 69 sqq., 419 

presumption in favor of 29 

Theistic belief, grounds of 20 sqq. 

origin of 1 sqq., 424 

sense 22 

Tradition as a source of theism 2 sqq. 

as transmitting Christianity 332 

Traditions, Jewish, in the New Testament 275 sqq. 

Trees of Paradise 270 sq. 

Trench on miracles 127, 177, 222 

Truth, absolute 35 

absolute and relative 405-411 

Lessiug on the pursuit of 356 

Tubingen theory, the 370 sqq. 

Typical character of Old Testament prophecy 234 sqq. 

prophecies not evidential 243 

Uniqueness of Christ 140 sqq., 168, 183, 210 sq. 

Unknown Reality, the 402 

Visions, the Biblical 200 sqq. 

Watson on the primeval revelation 425 

Westminster Confession referred to 342 

"Word of God " vs. "Bible" 367 

Words, in what sense inspired 287 



INDEX OF AUTHORS REFERRED TO IN THIS 
VOLUME. 



Page 

Abbot, Ezra 207 

Abbott, E. A. . . . 129, 202, 212 

Alford 205 

Argyll, Duke of . . 25, 71, 77, 86 

Arnold, Matthew 47, 105, 129, 136, 

141, 157 sqq. 

Arnold, Thomas . . . 127, 179 

Atbanasius 150 

Athenagoras 286 

Atkinson, H. G 38 

Augustine 112 

Baier 285 

Bannerman 301 

Barnes, A 220 

Bascom, J 53 sq. 

Baur, F. C 217, 371 

Beck, J. T 298 

Bender, W 22, 130, 188 

Berkeley 391 sq. 

Beyschlag .... 105 sq., 429 

Biedermann 130 

Birks, T. R. . ...... 100 

Bissell, E. C 360, 381 

Boardman, G. N 316 

Bowne, B. P 13, 30, 401 

Brace, C. L 192 

Braid 214 

Bredenkamp, C. J 382 

Briggs, C. A. . 67, 234, 245, 374, 

446 
Bruce, A. B. . 90, 112, 186 sq., 

222 

Buchanan, J 403 

Buchner 397 

Burgon 238, 286, 335 

Burnouf, Emile . 66, 69, 86, 229 sq. 



Page 
Bushnell, H. . . 98, 113, 129, 182 
Butler, Bishop 316 

Caird, J 25, 35 

Cairns, J 98 

Calderwood, H 3, 8 

Calovius 285 

Calvin 299 

Carpenter 214 

Chalmers 122 

Christlieb .... 128, 208, 260 

Chrysostom 299 

Clarke, J. F HI, 126 

Clemens, Alexandrinus . . . 229 

Clifford, W. K 193 

Cocker, B. F 423 

Coleridge, S. T 127, 179 

Conder, E. R 2, 54 

Conybeare 299 

Coquerel, A. J 130 

Cousin 385 

Cowper 221 

Cremer 299, 313 

Curteis, G. H 112, 131 

Czolbe 38 

Darwin 21 

Davidson, S. . . 438, 439, 445 sq. 

Davison, J 245 

Delitzsch 234, 242, 270 sq., 381, 446 

DeWette 299 

Diman, J. L 2,55 

Dorner, A 112 

Dorner, I. A. 33, 39, 114, 124, 127, 
182, 223, 229, 318, 352, 412 

Drummond, J 162 

DuBois-Reymond 72 

Dwinell, I.' E 377 



462 



JKDEX OF AUTHORS. 



Page 

Ellicott 299 sq. 

Elmslie, W. G 273 

Ewald. . . f 212,245 

Fairbairn, A. M 65 sqq. 

Fairbairn, P. . 234, 239, 245, 256, 

299 

Feuerbach, L 21, 53 

Fichte, J. G 46 

Fisher, G. P. 33, 127, 128, 155, 160, 

200, 204 

Fiske, J. . 21, 43, 397 sqq., 412 sqq. 

Flint, R 2, 397, 423 

Flugel, 115 

Frank 318 

Ganssen 285 

Given, J. J 331 

Gloatz 115 sqq. 

Goltz, Von der Ill 

Gould, E. P 323 

Gray, Asa 56 

Green, T. H 42 

Green, W. H 379, 381 

Greg, W. R. 83, 129, 141, 201, 206 

Haeckel 42 

Haley, J. W 331 

Hamilton, Sir Wm. . . 357, 415 

Harnack, A 230 

Harris, S. . 13, 39, 45, 54, 109, 414 

Harrison, F 422 

Haweis, H. R 105 

Hedge, F. H 130 

Herrmann, W 144 sqq. 

Hilgenfeld, A 162, 302 

Hirzel, J 164 

Hitzig . . . 245, 258, 446, 448 sq. 

Hollaz 285 

Holtzmann 210, 299 

Hooker, R 286 

Hopkins, M 190 

Horst, G. C 244 

Hnme 21, 98 

Huther 299 

Jackson, W 55 

Janet, P 55 



Page 

Josephus 438 

Justin Martyr 229, 286 

Kaftan, J 22 sq. 

Kahnis . 315, 324 

Keim . . . 130, 199, 202 sqq., 212 

Kleinert 245 

Konig, F. E 381 

Kostlin, J 107, 126 

Kuenen245,251, 373, 378s?., 446, 449 
Kiiper 245 

Ladd, G. T. 106 sqq., 114, 179, 220, 

234, 245, 258, 277, 290 sqq., 298, 

313, 367, 435, 439, 444, 448, 

451 

Lange, F. A 21 

Lange, J. P 105, 214 

Lecky 192 

Lee, W 281, 293, 313 

Leland 424 

Lessing . . 88, 90, 131, 205, 356 

Lewes, G. H 403 

Ligbtfoot, J. B 126 

Lipsius, R. A. . . 129 sq., 132, 142 

Lotze, H 36, 47, 51 

Lowth 369 

Lubbock 21, 25, 73 

Lucretius 21 

Luthardt 62 

McCosh 17 

Mair, A 127, 280 

Mansel 54, 415 

Marsh, Bishop 235 

Martineau, H 38 

Martineau, J 43, 298 

Matheson, G 30 

Maudsley 389 sqq. 

Maurer , 446 

Maurice, F. D 127,179 

Meyer 223, 437 

Mill, J. S 37, 87, 98 

Moleschott 397 

Morison, J. C 193 

Mosheim 298 

Mozley . . . 100, 171, 186, 347 
Mulford, E 8 



INDEX OF AUTHOKS. 



463 



Page 

Miiller, Julius 115 

Miiller, Max 66, 86 

Murphy, J. J 4, 396, 403 

Neauder 105 

Xewman, F. W 82, 154 

Newman, J. H. . 98, 125, 128, 217 
Nitzsch 253 

Oehler, G. F 245 

Oehler, Y. F 258 

Olshausen 104 

Orelli 245 

Origen 235, 298 

Paley . . T 174 

Park, E. A 97 

Parker, Theodore ... 82 sq., 88 

Patton, F. L 318 

Paulus 212, 430 

Peabody, A. P Ill 

Pecau^F 130, 244 

Perowne . . . 234, 376, 379, 382 

Pileiderer, O. . 79, 81, 85, 129 sq., 

133 sq., 141, 232, 371, 373 

Philippi 287 

Philo 266 

" Physicus" 55 

Porter, N 39 

Potter, A 114 

Powell, Baden .... 128, 130 
Pressense 25, 220 

Quarry 266 sq. 

Queustedt 285 

Redford, R. A 448 

Renan 86,128,160,219 

Renouf 86 

Riehm, E 234, 245, 379 

Ritschl, A. . 22, 102, 130, 142 sq., 
145, 150, 168, 434 

Hitter, H 385 

Rogers, H 83, 164 

Rohr ......... 136 

Rothe, R. . 28, 100 sq., 107, 110, 

299, 302 sq., 315 

Rougemout 314 



Page 

Rousseau 129 

Row, C. A. 103, 155, 182, 197, 287, 

313 

Royce, J 34 sq., 94, 317 

Riickert 164 

Rudelbach 286 

Savage, M. J 21, 97 

Schaff, P 1S2 

ScheUing 77 

Schenkel 157, 202 

Schleiermacher . . 22, 111, 131, 197 

Scholteu 211 sq. 

Schottgen 276 

Schultz, H 245, 252 

Schwegler 372 

Seeley, J. R 130, 167 

Seelye, J. H 124 

Smith, R. P 245, 381 

Smith, R. T 6 

Smith, W. R. . . . 245, 377 sq. 

Smyth, N 27, 347 

Spencer, H. 21, 27, 33, 39, 44, 48, 
54, 397-401, 412-422, 427 sq. 

Spiess, E 229 

SpiUer, P 427 

Stephen, Sir J 359, 375 

Sterling, J 128 

Storrs, R. S 192 

Stoughton, J 179 

Strack, H. A 381 

Strauss 159, 170, 197 sq., 204, 212 

Stuart, M 235-237, 239 

" Supernatural Religion " 1, 99, 426 

Taylor, TT. M. 98, 102, 174 sqq., 189 

Teichmuller 23, 147 

Temple, Bishop 112, 215 

Tertullian 229 

Thayer, J. H. . 155, 224, 277, 300 
Tholuck . 128, 234, 246, 247, 251 

Thomas Aquinas 114 

Thomassen, J. H 48 

Tindal, M 88 

Toy, C. H 382 

Trench, R. C. 126 sq., 177, 179, 222 

Tuke 214 

Twining, K 196 



464 



INDEX OF AUTHORS. 



Page | Page 

Tylor, E. B 21 Watson, E 275, 381, 413 

Tyndall 400 , Watson, R. 425 

Weiss, B 302, 431 

rhlkorn 192 j Weisse, C H. . . 100, 168, 213 sq. 



Ullmann 182 Weizsacker 

Ulrica 24, 33 I Wellhausen 



202, 213, 217 
. . 373, 381 



Urwick, W. 



Yogt, C. 
Yos, G. 



258 

397 
381 



Wace, H. . . 
Warington, G. . 



298 

98, 109, 125, 287, 
300, 367, 377 



Westcott 104, 365 

Whiston, W 238 

Wiesinger 299 

Wright, C. H. H 445 

Wright, G. E. . . . 277, 313, 347 

ZeUer 85, 434 



BIBLICAL INDEX. 



267 



Gen. i.-iii . 267, 

i. 3 . . 

i. 27 . . 

ii. 9 . . 
' ii. 24 . . 

iii. . . . 

iii. 15 . . 

iii. 22 . . 

iii. 24 . . 

vi. 9 . . 

ix. 20 . 

xxv. 27 . 

xxxv. 22 

xlix. 10 . 
Exod. xxxiv 
Lev. i. 1-5 

iii. 2 . . 

iv. 4, 12 . 

vi. 11 . 

xi. 44 . 

xix. 2 . 

xix. 18 . 
Num. xxii. 28 

xxiv. 17 . 
Deut. iv. 27 

vi. 5 . . 

xii. 8 . . 

xii. 21, 29 

xiii. 1-5 . 

xiii. 12 . 

xvi. 2 . 

xviii. 15, 18 

xviii. 22 . 

xix. 1 

xxv. 4 . 

xxviii. 25 

xxx. 11-14 

xxxii. 2 . 
Josh. x. 11 . 
Judg. iv. 4 sqq. 

vi. 7-10 . . 
2 Sam. vii. 2 sqq 

xii. 1-15 . . 

xxiv. 11-14 
1 Kings xi. 29-35 

xiii. 2 . 

xvii. 7 sqq 

xviii. 1 . 

xviii. 17 . 



Page 

272, 273 

. 272 

266, 272 

267, 271 
. 266 
. 265 
. 256 

271 
267 
344 
277 
344 
449 
256 
260 
380 
380 



268 



. 380 

. 346 

. 346 

. 346 

. 260 

. 256 

. 250 

. 346 

. 380 

. 380 
177 sq. 

. 380 

. 380 

. 257 

. 245 

. 380 

. 237 

. 250 

. 238 

. 277 

. 261 

. 247 

. 247 

. 247 

. 247 

. 247 

. 253 

. 251 

. 212 

. 277 

. 254 



Page 

1 Kings xxii. 13 . . 254 

2 Kings i. 9-12 . . 260 
xiii. 21 .... 260 
xiv. 25 .... 450 

xxii 379 

xxii. 8 .... 377 

xxii. 11, 13. . . 378 

2 Chron. xxvi. 22 . 290 

Job i. 1 344 

Ps. ii .... 236, 242 

ii. 7 236 

xvi. . . 236-238, 275 

xviii 242 

xix. 7 .... 344 

xxii 236 

xxii. 1 .... 241 

xxiv 242 

xl 238 

xlv 236 

lxvii 242 

lxviii 242 

lxix 236 

lxix. 5 .... 236 

lxix. 21 .... 236 

lxix. 21-28 ... 345 

lxxii 242 

lxxvi 242 

lxxviii. 2 . . . 238 

lxxxiii 242 

xcv. 7, 8 ... 275 

cvii. 4-9 . . . . 212 

ex. 236, 242, 275, 302 

ex. 4 257 

Isa. ii. 2-4 . . . . 249 

viii. 16-ix. 7 . . 246 

ix. 1-7 . 242, 248, 257 

ix. 7 249 

x. 24-xi. 16 . . 246 

xi. 1-9 .... 257 

xi. 10-16 ... 251 

xi. 14 249 

xiv. 1-3 ... . 251 

xxvii. 12, 13 . . 251 

xxxiv. 11-16 . . 248 
xl.-lxvi. . 255, 257, 380 
xii. 8-14 . . 257, 258 

xiii. 1-7 . . . . 257 

xiii. 19 .... 257 

xliii. 10 .... 257 

30 



Page 



Isa. xliii. 22-24 . . 380 


xliv. 1, 21 


. . 257 


xlix. 1-6 


. . . 257 


1. 10 . . 


. . . 257 


Ii. 17-liii. VI 


. . 246 


Iii. 13-liii. 12 257, 258 


liii. . . . 


. 257, 258 


lxvi. 19 . 


. . . 255 


lxvi. 20-23 


. . 249 


Jer. iii. 1-18 


. . 246 


iii. 16 . . 


. . 249 


iii. 18 . . 


. . . 251 


vii. 25, 26 


. . 247 


ix. 16 . . 


. . 250 


xv. 4 . . 


. . 250 


xxiii. 5 . 


. . 249 


xxiv. 9 . 


. . 250 


xxv. 4-7 


. . 247 


xxix. 18 . . 


. . 250 


xxix. 19 . . 


. . 247 


xxx. 9 . 


. . 249 


xxxi. 10-14 


. . 251 


xxxi. 15 . 


. 238, 250 


xxxi. 31-34 


. . 249 


xxxiii. 15. 1 


7 . .249 


xxxiii. 18-2 


2 . . 249 


xxxv. 15 


. . 247 


xlvi. 27 . 


. . 251 


Ezek. ii. 3-5 


. . 247 


v. 10 . . 


. . 250 


xi. 16. . 


. . 250 


xi. 17 . . 


. . 251 


xii. 15 . . 


. . 250 


xx. 23 . 


. . 250 


xxvii. 13, K 


. . 255 


xxxiv. 23, 2 


4 . . 249 


xxxvi. 16-3 


3 . . 246 


Dan. iii. 27 


. . 98 


viii. 21 . 


. . 255 


ix. 6 . . 


. . 247 


ix. 26 . . 


. . 257 


x. 20 . . 


. . 255 


xi. 2 . . 


. . 255 


Hos. iii. 5 . 


. . 249 


vi. 2 . . 


. . 203 


ix. 17. . 


. . 250 


xi. 1 . . . 


238, 250 


xi. 11 . . 


. . 251 


Joel ii. 15-32 


. . 246 



466 



BIBLICAL INDEX. 



Joel ii. 28-32 

iii. 1-8 . 

iii. 6 . . 
Amos ix. 7-15 

ix. 8, 9 . 

ix. 11 . . 

ix. 14, 15 
Obad. 17-21 
Jonah iv. 2 
Micah iii. 1-i 

iii. 8 . . 

iv. 10 . 

v. 1-5 . 

v. 2-10 . 

v. 5 . . 
Zeph. ii. 14 

iii. 8-20 . 
Zech. iii. 8 

vi. 13 . . 

rii. 12 . 

ix. 9, 10 

ix. 13 . . 

x. 10 . . 

xii. 10 . 

xiii. 7 . . 

xiii. 8, 9 . 

xiv. 16-21 
Mai. iv. 4 . 
Matt. i. 18 . 

ii. 15 . . 

ii. 17, 18 

iv. 4, 7, 10 

iv. 17 . 

v. 12 . 

v. 17 . 

v. 18 . 

v. 21-48 

v. 38-46 

v. 42 . 

vi. 15. 

vii. 12 

vii. 21-27 

vii. 29 

viii. 28-33 

viii. 33 

ix. 2-6 

ix. 5 . 

ix. 6 . 

x. 1 . 

x. 19, 20 

x. 34-39 

xi. 2-5 

xi. 5 . 

xi. 11 . 

xi. 28 . 

xi. 46-48 

xii. 3, 4 

xii. 24 

xii. 27 

xii. 39 



242 



238 



Page 
242, 247 
. 251 
. 255 
. 246 
. 250 
. 249 
. 251 
. 251 
. 260 
i . 246 
. 247 
. 251 
242, 257 
248, 251 
. 249 
. 248 
. 251 
. 257 
. 257 
. 247 
248, 257 
. 255 
. 251 
. 257 
. 257 
. 250 
. 249 
. 377 
. 223 

239, 250 
238, 250 

. 301 
. 210 
. 440 

240, 440 
. 302 
. 210 
. 345 
. 338 
. 185 
. 440 
. 210 
. 177 
. 223 
. 220 

211, 212 
. 181 

157, 186 

181, 308 
. 305 
. 210 
. 157 

216, 219 
. 159 
. 210 
. 185 

274, 440 
. 443 
. 444 
. 157 



xii. 40 239,241,261,437 







Page 


Matt. xii. 41 . 


. 438 


xiii. 14 . . 


. 440 


xiii. 35 . . 


. 238 


xv. 7 . . . 


. 440 


xv. 32-39 . 


. 213 


xvi. 4 . . . 


. 157 


xvi. 5-12 . . 


. 213 


xvii. 3 . . . 


. 201 


xvii. 24-27 . . 


. 222 


xviii. 18 . . . 


. 308 


xix. 4 . . . 


. 272 


xix. 4-6 .. . 


. 266 


xix. 7, 8 . . . 


. 440 


xix. 8 . . . . 


. 344 


xxi. 4, 5 . . . 


. 248 


xxi. 13 . . . 


. 301 


xxi. 18-20 . . 


. 223 


xxi. 42 . . . 


300, 303 


xxii. 29 . . . 


300, 302 


xxii. 40 . . . 


. 440 


xxii. 41-46 


. 335 


xxii. 43 . . . 


. 302 


xxii. 43-45 


. 275 


xxiv. 15. . . 


. 440 


xxiv. 37-39 


439 sq. 


xxiv. 38 . . . 


. 277 


xxiv. 39 . . . 


. 261 


xxv. 31-46 . 


. 211 


xxvi. 54-56 


240, 303 


xxvii. 52, 53 . 


. 223 


xx viii. 10 . 


. 204 


xxviii. 19 . 


308, 309 


xxviii. 20 305, 


308, 309 


Mark i. 21 sqq. 


. 217 


i. 40-45 . . 


. 211 


i. 44 . 




. 274 


ii. 3 sqq. 




. 212 


ii. 9, 10 




. 216 


ii. 10 . . 




157, 186 


iii. 15 




. 181 


iii. 20-30 




. 157 


iv. 38 




. 184 


v. 30 . 




. 181 


vi. 7 . 




. 181 


vi. 34 . 




. 212 


vi. 52 . 




. 432 


vii. 10 




. 274 


vii. 13 




. . 367 


viii. 1-9 




. . 213 


viii. 2 . 




. . 433 


viii. 12 




. 157 


viii. 14-2 


1 '. 


. . 213 


viii. 32 




. . 184 


ix. 13 . 




. 159, 241 


x. 5 . 




. . 274 


x. 6 . 




. . 272 


x. 6-9 




. . 266 


xii. 19 




. . 274 


xii. 24 




. . 302 


xii. 26 




261, 274 


xii. 35-3 r 


r '. 


. . 275 





Page 


Mark xii. 36 


. . 302 


xii. 40 . . 


. . 437 


xiii. 11 . 


. . 305 


xiii. 32 . . 


. . 436 


xiv. 49 . . 


. 240, 300 


xvi. 8 . 


. . 205 


xvi. 9-20 


. . 234 


Luke i. 3 . 


. . 284 


i. 11 . . . 


. . 201 


i. 32 . . . 


. . 239 


i. 54-56 . . 


. . 223 


iv. 22 . . . 


. . 177 


iv. 25, 26 . 


.261,277 


iv. 27 . . 


. . 261 


v. 1-11 . . 


. . 222 


v. 18 sqq. . 


. . 212 


v. 23, 24 . 


. . 181 


v. 24 . . . 


. 157, 186 


vi. 5-10 . . 


. . 181 


vi. 17 . . . 


. . 206 


vii. 18-22 . 


. . 157 


vii. 48 . . 


. . 211 


viii. 46 . . 


. . 181 


ix. 1, 2 . . 


. . 181 


x. 13 . . . 


. 157, 221 


x. 38-42. . 


. . 206 


x. 40 . . . 


. . 184 


xi. 20 . 1 


57, 180, 216 


xi. 29 . . 


. . 157 


xi. 29-32 . 


. 437, 439 


xi. 32 . . 


. . 438 


xii. 11, 12 


. . 305 


xiii. 16 . . 


. . 440 


xiii. 32 . . 


. . 157 


xvi. 16 . 


. . 440 


xvi. 17 . 


. . 302 


xvi. 29 . 2 


74, 303, 440 


xvi. 31 . 


. 157, 303 


xvii. 10 . 


. . 142 


xvii. 26, 27 


. . 440 


xvii. 27 . 


.261,277 


xviii. 30 . 


. . 210 


xviii. 31 


.301,440 


xx. 28 . 


. . 274 


xx. 37 . 


. 261, 440 


xx. 37, 38 


. . 335 


xx. 41-44 


. . 275 


xxi. 14, 15 


. . 305 


xxi. 22 . 


. 240, 301 


xxii. 37 . 


. . 258 


xxiv. 21 . 


. . 185 


xxiv. 25 . 


. . . 440 


xxiv. 27 2 


40, 300, 303 


xxiv. 32 . 


. . . 300 


xxiv. 44 2 


40, 274, 301 


xxiv. 45 . 


. 300, 335 


xxiv. 47-49 


. . 308 


xxiv. 49 2 


04, 205, 305 


John i. 41 . 


. . . 185 


i. 45, 49 . 


. . 185, 231 


ii. 7-10 . 


. . 104-107 



BIBLICAL INDEX. 



467 



239 



49 



John ii. 9 
ii. 11 . 
ii. 19 . 
ii. 22 . 
iii. 2 . 
iii. 14. 
iii. 16 . 
iv. 25, 26 
iv. 34 . 
iv. 48 . 
v. 5 sqq 
v. 36 . 
v. 38 . 
v. 39 231, 240 
v. 40 . . 
v. 45-47 
vi. 14, 15 
vi. 15 . . 
vi. 30 sqq 
vi. 31, 45 
vi. 31, 32 
vi. 35 
vi. 38 . 
vi. 45. 
vi. 47-58 
vi. 66 . 
vii. 19 
vii. 23 
vii. 31 
vii. 39 
viii. 12 
viii. 29, 46 
viii. 37 
x. 18 . 
x. 25 . 
x. 32 . 
x. 34-36 
x. 35 . 
x. 38 . 
x. 41 . 
xi. 26 . 
xi. 40-42 
xi. 42 
xi. 46-48 
xii. 13 
xii. 14, 15 
xii. 41 
xiii. 6 
xiii. 18 
xiv. 11 
xiv. 16- 
xiv. 26 
xv. 16 
xv. 26, 27 
xvi. 12-15 
xvi. 24 . 
xvii. 20 . 
xvii. 21 . 
xvii. 22 . 
xix. 24 . 



18 



Page 

. 107 

. 185 

. 181 

. 301 

. 216 
261, 439 

. 369 

. 231 

. 182 

. 157 

. 212 

. 182 

. 303 

300, 302 
. 303 

274, 303 

. 432 

. 185 

. 157 

. 301 

. 261 

. 211 

. 182 

301, 440 
. 211 
. 183 

274, 440 

. 274 

. 184 

. 313 

. 210 

182, 210 

. 440 

. 181 

. 157 

. 221 

. 335 

300, 303 

. 157 

. 159 

. 237 

. 181 

. 157 

. 185 

. 231 

. 248 

. 231 

. 184 

. 231 

. 157 

. 305 

305, 308 

. 211 

. 305 

. 305 

. 211 

. 306 

. 192 

. 308 

. 231 



John xix. 28 

xx. 9 . . 

xx. 21 

xx. 22, 23 

xx. 31 

xxi. 15-1 
Acts i. 4 

i. 8 . 

i. 13 . 

i. 16 . 

ii. 1-4 

ii. 3 . 

ii. 4 . 

ii. 14-21 

ii 22 . 

ii. 24 . 

ii. 24-36 

iii. 1-8 

iii. 15 

iii. 16 

iii. 24 

iii. 26 

iv. 8 . 

iv. 10 

iv. 13 

iv. 31 

iv. 35 

v. 30 . 

vi. 1-4 

vi. 5 . 

vi. 7 . 

vi. 8 . 

vi. 10 

vii. 2 . 

vii. 2. 3 

vii. 26 

vii. 30 

vii. 36 

vii. 53 

vii. 55 

viii. 5-7 

viii. 13 

viii. 17 

viii. 29 

viii. 32 

viii. 39 

ix. 7 . 

ix. 26, 27 

ix. 33, 34 

ix. 36-40 

x. 9-16 

x. 10 . 

x. 38 . 

x. 40-43 

x. 44 . 

xi. 1 . 

xi. 24 

xii. 24 

xiii. 2-4 

xiii. 9 



24 
186 

186 



Page 
236, 240, 345 
231, 301 
. 308 

305, 308 
186, 231 

. 308 
. 204 
. 308 
. 311 
240, 300 
. 306 
. 201 
. 305 

306, 309 
216, 219 

. 181 
237, 275 
. 181 
181, 186 
. 181 
. 240 
. 181 
. 306 
. 186 
. 309 

305, 367 
. 309 
. 181 
. 309 

306, 310 
. 367 
. 310 
. 310 
. 201 
. 261 
. 201 

201, 261 
. 261 
. 276 

306, 310 
. 310 
. 310 
. 306 

306, 310 
. 301 
. 310 
. 202 

203, 311 
. 181 
. 181 
. 201 
. 284 
. 221 
. 186 
. 306 
. 367 
. 311 
. 367 
. 305 
. 306 



Acts xiii. 17 
xiii. 30 . 
xiii. 33 . 
xiii. 34-37 

xiv. 8-10 
xiv. 14 . 
xv. 1-29 
xv. 8 . . 
xv. 15 
xv. 28 . 
xvi. 6, 7 
xvi. 9 
xvii. 2 . 
xvii. 3 . 
xvii. 11 . 
xvii. 31 . 
xviii. 9 . 
xviii. 11 . 
xviii. 24 . 
xix. 6 
xix. 20 . 
xx. 24 . 
xxii. 9 . 
xxii. 17 . 
xxiii. 3 . 
xxvi. 16 . 
Rom. i. 1 . 
i. 2, 3 . 
i. 4 . . 
i. 17 . . 
i. 19, 20 . 
ii. 14, 15 
iii. 2 . . 
iii. 4 . . 
iii. 5 . . 
iii. 25 
iv. 1-18 . 
iv. 3 . . 
iv. 6 . . 
iv. 19-21 
iv. 23 . 
v. 5 . . 
v. 12-21 . 
v. 14 . . 
vi. 19 . . 
viii. . . 
viii. 1-5 . 
viii. 9 
viii. 9-14 
viii. 17 . 
ix. 4, 5 . 
ix. 6 . . 
x. 5 . . 
x. 6-9 . 
x. 15 . . 
x. 19 . . 
xi. 9 . . 
xi. 13 . 
xi. 17-24 



181 



Page 

. . 261 

. . 181 

. . 236 

237, 241, 

275 

. . 181 

. . 311 

. . 309 

. . 306 

. . 301 

. . 305 

305, 306 

199, 201 

300 

240 

300 

186 

199 

367 

300 

306 

367 

309 

202 

284 

314 

310 

. 305 

. 232 

186, 211 

. 301 

. 231 

. 231 

. 232 

. 301 

. 312 

. 211 

. 232 

. 301 

. 275 

. 261 

. 301 

. 307 

. 265 

. 241 

. 312 

. 429 

. 307 

. 289 

. 307 

. 308 

. 232 

. 367 

. 275 

. 238 

. 301 

. 275 

. 275 

. 309 

232, 373 



468 



BIBLICAL INDEX. 



Eora. xii. 4, 
xv. 4 . 
xv. 10 

1 Cor. i. 1 
i. 16 . 
i. 17 . 
ii. 6 . 
ii. 6-13 
ii. 10-16 
iii. 1-3 
iii. 10-12 
iii. 16 

v. 7 . 
vi. 2 . 
vi. 19 . 
vii. 
vii. 6 . 
vii. 10 
vii. 12 
vii. 25 
ix. 1 . 
ix. 9, 10 
x. 1-4 
x.4 . 
x. 11 . 
xi. 8, 9 
xii. 3-13 
xii. 4 . 
xii. 27 
xii. 28 
xiii. 10 
xiii. 12 
xiv. 36 
xiv. 37 
xv. 1 . 
xv. 1-11 
xv. 3, 4 
xv. 8 . 
xv. 8-10 
xv. 15 
xv. 22 
xv. 35 
xv. 45 

2 Cor. i. 5, 
i. 24 . 
iii. 6 . 
iii. 7 . 
iii. 7-11 
iii. 15 . 
iv. 2 . 
iv. 5 . 
iv. 6 . 
iv. 7 . 
v. 21 . 
x. 8-11 
x. 10 . 
xi. 3 . 
xi. 5 . 
xi. 17 
xi. 23 



202, 





Page 




211 


300, 3 




300 




305 




284 




309 




307 




310 




305 




307 




309 




307 




239 




308 




307 




313 




312 




312 


, 


312 




312 


305 


, 309 


237 


,301 




232 




276 


. 


301 


265 


,266 




307 


289 


,309 




211 


, 


309 




307 


. 


368 




367 


, 


305 




309 




199 




232 


, 


202 


, 


305 


, 


181 


, 


265 




203 


265 


301 




308 




325 




303 




261 




232 




275 




367 




325 


. 


272 




368 


182 


211 




305 




289 




265 


305 


309 




312 




312 



2 Cor. xii. 1 

xii. 1-4 

xii. 9, 12 

xii. 11, 12 

xiii. 2, 3 

xiii. 10 
Gal. i. 1 

i. 6-9 . 

i. 8,9. 

i. 8, 9, 11 

i. 8, 11 

i. 9-12 

i. 10 . 

i. 15, 16 

i. 18 . 

ii. 2 . 

ii. 5 . 

ii. 6 . 

ii. 6-9 

ii. 11-14 

ii. 14 . 

iii. 2 . 

iii. 3 . 

iii. 7 . 

iii. 8 . 

iii. 14 sqq 

iii. 15 

iii. 19 

iii. 24 

iv. 5-7 

iv. 22-25 

v. 16 . 

vi. 1 . 
Eph. i. 1 

i. 13 . 

i. 15 . 

ii. 20 . 

iii. 1 . 

iii. 1-7 

iii. 2-8 

iii. 13-19 

iv. 1 . 

iv. 8 . 

iv. 1 1 . 

iv. 13 

iv. 17. 

iv. 25 

iv. 30 

v. 18 . 

v. 30 . 

vi. 20-22 
Phil. iii. 10 

iii. 12 . 

iii. 15 
Col. i. 1 

i. 24 

i. 28 

ii. 16 

ii. 19 
1 Thess. ii. 13 



305, 



12 



Page 

. 199 
284, 313 

. 305 

. 309 

. 305 

. 289 
309, 310 

. 325 

. 310 

. 309 

. 289 

. 305 

. 325 
305, 310 
203, 335 
313, 314 

. 314 

. 309 

. 305 

. 313 

. 314 

. 307 

. 307 

. 232 

. 301 

. 232 

. 312 

. 276 

. 232 

. 308 

. 239 

. 307 

. 307 
305, 373 

. 307 

. 373 

. 309 

. 373 

. 305 

. 373 

. 373 

. 373 

. 300 

. 309 

. 307 

. 373 

. 372 

. 307 

. 307 

. 211 

. 373 

. 308 

. 307 

. 307 

. 305 



. 307 

. 240 

. 211 

305, 367 



Page 

1 Thess. iv. 1, 2 . . 305 

iv. 8 307 

iv. 15 305 

2 Thess. ii. 13 , . 307 
ii. 13-15 .... 305 
ii. 15 306 

1 Tim. i. 1 . . . . 305 

ii. 5 211 

ii. 13, 14 . 265, 266 

2 Tim. ii. 9 ... 367 

iii. 8 275 

iii. 15,16 297,298,322, 

344 

iv. 13 369 

Titus i. 1-3 ... 305 

ii. 5 367 

iii. 5 307 

Heb. i. 1 .... 289 

i. 2 308 

i. 6, 7 .... 300 

ii. 2 276 

ii. 12 300 

iii. 7 300 

iv. 3, 4 . . . . 300 

iv. 7 275 

iv. 12 .... 367 

iv. 15 .... 182 

v. 6 300 

vii. . . . 239,241 

vii. 26 .... 182 

viii. 5 .... 240 

viii. 7 .... 344 

x. 1 240 

x. 5, 15 . . . . 300 

xi. 7 261 

xi. 8 261 

xi. 11 .... 261 

xi. 17-19 ... 261 

xi. 28 .... 261 

xi. 29 .... 261 

xi. 30 .... 261 

xi. 33-38 ... 276 

xii. 18-21 ... 261 

James i. 25 ... 379 

ii. 21 261 

v. 17 . . . 261, 277 

1 Pet. i. 2 . . . . 307 
186, 208 

. . 301 

. . 305 

. . 182 

. . 208 



i. 10, 11 
i. 10-12 
i. 19 . 
i. 21 . 
i. 23 . 
ii. 6 . 
ii. 9 . 
ii. 22 . 
iii. 20 
iii. 21 
iv. 14 
2 Pet. i. 4 



301 

308 
182 
261 
208 
307 
308 



BIBLICAL INDEX. 



469 





Page 


Pet i. 21 . 


. 301 


ii. 16 . . . 


. 261 


iii. 2 . . . 


, 305 


iii. 5 . . . 


. 367 


iii. 15, 16 . 


. 305 


John i. 1-3 . 


. 305 


i. 3 ... 


. 332 


i. 8 ... 


. 341 


ii. 20 . . . 


. 289 





Page 


1 John iii. 1, 2 . 


308 


iii. 5 . . . . 


182 


iii. 9 . . . . 


342 


iii. 24 . . . 


307 


Jude, 9 . . . . 


276 


14, 15 . . . 


276 


Rev. i. 1-3 . . 


305 


1.0 .... 


207 


i.6 .... 


308 





Page 


ev. i. 9 . . 


. . 367 


i. 18 . . . 


. 207 


ii. 7 . . . 


. 267 


ii. 8 ... 


. 207 


xx. 2 . . . 


. 269 


xx. 4 . . . 


. . 367 


xxi. 2 . . 


. 267 


xxii. 2 . . 


. 267 


xxii. 6, 7 . 


. 305 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: August 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



